The Land of What-Might-Have-Been
by Straightjacketed
Summary: After spending so many years wishing that things had been different, what happens when, halfway through their final meeting, Elphaba and Glinda find themselves unexpectedly plunged into the worst of all possible worlds? AU.
1. The Land Of What Is

A/N: This has been cooking for quite a while, ladies and gents. I was originally considering making it a direct sequel to "The Shattering of Oz," but I dropped that when I took a closer look at the concept, and realized that playing it with Elphaba and Glinda as they were at the end of the story wouldn't work: it felt like character regression, and it wouldn't have made sense considering all they'd seen and done by that stage. Repeating the formula of Elphaba trying to hide her survival from Glinda seemed equally unlikely to work: quite apart from the irritations particular to rehashing exactly the same old shit, it would have felt like another step backwards in characterization. So, I went for an AU that diverges only _slightly_ from the events of the musical- as you'll soon discover- and allow the characters to develop a little differently than before.

As for what inspired this story, there have been a lot of things that gave me ideas in the last couple of months, but the first and most amusing of them would have to be my thoughts on viewing the trailer to _Oz: The Great and The Powerful- _specifically upon realizing that the Emerald City appeared to be already built by the time of the Wizard's arrival: "The only way they can possibly have this make any sense is by having it take place in a parallell universe." (As for what I thought of the film itself, I didn't find it nearly as enraging as I thought I would: though most of it's a bit of a drag in regards to plot and character motivations, and the token Flying Monkey is a pain in the arse from beginning to end, there were a few scenes that actually carried emotional weight, and I appreciate the fact that the writer/director at least tried to give the future Wicked Witch of the West a sympathetic background and an understandable motivation. The key word being "tried.")

So, without further ado, my latest story: read, review, and above all, enjoy!

Disclaimer: _Wicked _is not mine; I have this on good authority.

* * *

Had anyone with a gift for magic taken a good look at the castle of Kiamo Ko from the outside, they would have been deeply worried.

Invisible to the naked eye but horrifyingly real nonetheless, the fabric of reality itself was beginning to fray and tear; from the outer wall to the distant outskirts of the property, the castle was surrounded by ethereal rifts- some large, some small, but all of them were growing at a terrifying rate. On their own, these wounds were harmless for the most part: the flying monkeys passed through them without noticing anything out of the ordinary, and one inquisitive traveller had actually set up camp right on top of one with no ill effects apart from a few weird dreams.

But the rips were growing, edging closer and closer towards the centre of the castle, and if they were to converge, there'd be no telling what could happen next. After all, infinity itself was bubbling and broiling behind the spectral wounds; the possibilities were quite literally unlimited.

Of course, given that the number of trained magicians in the region could be counted on one hand, and Elphaba Thropp and Glinda Uppland were both _inside _the castle and not interested in taking a good look outdoors, there was only one person who could have possibly seen the disaster lurching towards them: _she_ was watching it through an observatory telescope, too far away to make any kind of difference.

And for the first time in what felt like decades, Madame Morrible felt true fear- for herself, for the world, and, quite unexpectedly, for her students.

She didn't know what had made these wounds in the first place, but she could easily guess what had caused them to grow so dramatically; after all, the results of Elphaba's last temper-tantrum had been visible from the Emerald City- was it any wonder that her deteriorating sanity was actually _tearing the world apart?_ Thanks to the death of her sister and Fiyero, combined with her numerous failed attempts to seize the Ruby Slippers, the girl was obviously a hair's breadth from madness- and in danger of taking reality in the same direction.

And she also knew something even more troubling: It wasn't a question of _if_ this convergence of rifts would happen or not anymore; it was a question of when.

Morrible could only pray - somewhat uncharacteristically - that Glinda might be able to calm the former star pupil down before it was too late.

* * *

"For the last time, _she stole the slippers!"_ Elphaba shouted, briefly drowning out Dorothy's near-constant sobbing for a moment or two.

Glinda, who'd been trying to negotiate as best she could, flinched at the jagged edge to Elphaba's voice. She'd arrived at the castle less than five minutes ago, floating awkwardly across the skies of Oz in a desperate attempt to reach Kiamo Ko before the witch-hunters did; and along the way, in between almost puncturing the bubble, crashing, and being seen by scouts from the witch-hunter army, she'd wondered if she'd ever be able to get through to her friend- what with the way things had fallen apart over the last few days. Now that she was here, practically tripping over flying monkeys and struggling to make herself heard over the wailing of Elphaba's hostage, things weren't looking any better. In fact, if anything, they looked a thousand times worse than ever before.

"There is no dressing this up as anything other than grave-robbery," the tirade continued. "That..." She paused, struggling to find an epithet she hadn't used before. "That cacophonic little brat," she decided at last, "stole the-"

"They're only shoes, Elphaba, you don't actually need them-"

Elphaba's left eyelid twitched dangerously. "They're the only thing I've got left of Nessa!" she screamed. "And you want me to just let the girl stroll away with them as if they belonged to her?! No; for the fifth time, NO. If you really want to help her-"

"Oh for Oz's sake, I came here to help _you!_"

"You have a very funny way of showing it."

"Oh would you just shut up and listen?!" Glinda shrilled, her face flushing with anger. "There's an army out there, Elphie, and it's marching on Kiamo Ko; they'll be here soon, and they're not just going to try and break Dorothy out of the cellar- they're going to kill you. You need to get your prioritivities in order. You can outrun them easily if you get on your broom and start flying right now, but you're going to have let Dorothy go-"

"-And let her keep the Ruby Slippers-"

"They aren't worth dying over, Elphie!"

"How in the hell are you any judge of that, exactly? I mean, are you trying to grow a brain under those blonde tresses, or did the Wizard just give you a cue card to read or something when he sent you here?"

Elphaba couldn't have done more damage if she'd reached over and slapped her across the face. For perhaps three whole seconds, Glinda could only gape in disbelief, her face frozen in a look of utter shock. Then, she shouted "What is wrong with you?! You aren't just angry, you're going crazy-"

"Come on, let's hear it all! What do you want to call me next? Abomination? Freak? Wicked Witch? Traitor? Corruptor? Murderess? I've heard them all, Glinda, all of them from your good friend the Wizard. Try me- what do want to call me? What do you think I am?"

"_You're out of control!"_ Glinda screamed.

There was a long silence, as both witches took a very deep breath and pondered what to say next.

* * *

From that point onwards, things should have proceeded very simply: moments after that exchange of insults, Elphaba would have received the letter from Fiyero- notifying her that he was alive and well- and decided that it was time to leave Oz once and for all; she and Glinda would have forgiven each other for their past mistakes, reaffirmed their friendship one last time, and then exchanged tearful farewells; then, before the stunned eyes of the witnesses that had gathered around her, Elphaba would have faked her death.

In over a thousand different parallel timelines, the same sequence had played out in exactly the same way. The results weren't always the same, of course: in many versions of the story, Glinda found the green bottle and used it to bring a swift and unexpected end to the Wizard's regime; in others, she simply took the place of her "dead" friend and started a revolution. Sometimes, Elphaba and Fiyero escaped and spent the rest of their lives in peaceful seclusion without their ruse ever being discovered, and at other times, Glinda found herself receiving an unexpected visit from the deceased couple later that evening. On occasion, for one reason or another, events spiralled into chaos and destruction, with all three friends dying in the ensuing warfare.

In _this_ timeline, any one of those innumerable possibilities could have come to pass; in dozens of them, the fabric of reality might have been able to heal without Elphaba's grief-fuelled involuntary magic tearing any further holes in it.

But something in the sequence had changed.

It was a simple issue of bad timing: far outside the castle walls, Fiyero had slipped away from the Tin Man and the Lion, and was now trying to get the attention of the flying monkeys that now soared above Kiamo Ko in the hope that one of them might able to deliver the letter he'd written; in countless other timelines, Chistery had been flying close enough to see him and descended to investigate. At the Scarecrow's request, he'd delivered the letter to Elphaba, and things had progressed accordingly.

In this timeline, though, Chistery had taken a different flight path around the castle and hadn't seen Fiyero.

In this timeline, the letter did not reach Elphaba.

* * *

Glinda was the first to break the silence. "Elphie," she said- and there was no disguising the sheer desperation in her voice now-, "The Slippers can't be the only thing you can remember Nessarose by, can they? I mean, there was that wheelchair-"

"So I can recall just how much she hated the damn thing? Or how long I left her alone with it before finally bothering to help her? No, Glinda, I don't want to remember Nessa that way." She sighed deeply. "Before I enchanted them, the slippers were a gift from father- silver-plated shoes to celebrate getting into Shiz, and she _loved _them. I remember how she wore them to the Ozdust ballroom, when she danced with Boq..." In spite of herself, she smiled, briefly lost in nostalgia. "Do you remember how happy she was in those days?"

Glinda nodded.

"_That's_ how I want to remember her: happy; safe; loved... and I want to remember a time when I didn't shirk my duties to her." The smile faded. "Enchanting the Slippers was the last good thing I ever did for her- the first in years after I abandoned her."

"What are you talking about? You didn't –"

"_Yes I did!_ I was supposed to care for Nessa, I was supposed to make sure she didn't get hurt; so what did I do? I left her alone while I went off to fight for Animal Rights, and saddled her with every single bit of bad press I got. I've seen the newspapers, Glinda: they were suspecting her of being like me even before she started passing laws against the Munchkins! And worst of all, I failed the very thing I abandoned her for: the Wizard is still in charge, the Animals still have no rights to speak of, and there's no chance of anything changing for the better! _My sister is dead and it all happened because of me!_" She fell silent, her eyes shining with tears.

"You can't keep blaming yourself for everything that goes wrong, Elphie. Nothing that happened to Nessa was your fault. I mean, the house didn't land on her because you left her, that was an acc-" Glinda stopped, briefly remembering the triumphant leer on Morrible's face, and the threats that had followed; she couldn't go on pretending that it had been an accident, not after that. "It wasn't your fault," she finished. "And having the Slippers won't change what happened either."

"That's not the point. I need to remember that I was there for her once. I need to remember that I helped someone."

"You've helped lots of people- you've helped the Animals, you've helped me, you've helped Fiyero-"

Elphaba's face twisted in anguish; without warning, she was crying, tears coursing down her face. "And look what good that did!" she sobbed. "My help was probably what killed him in the end!"

For a moment or two, Glinda couldn't respond. Already taken aback by the incongruous sight of Elphaba crying (something she'd never done in all the years Glinda had known her), she was almost completely silenced by the terrible words that had just been voiced. Eventually, she managed to piece her thoughts together long enough to ask, "What?"

"He's _dead, _Glinda, and it's because of me!" She took a deep breath, clearly trying to steady herself. "I tried to help him when he was being tortured, I tried; as soon as I stopped running, I used every spell in the Grimmerie that looked as if it could help. It was working- I could _feel_ the magic reaching towards him- and then it all fell apart: one minute he was there, the next he was gone."

"But that doesn't mean he's dead," Glinda exclaimed, desperately seizing at the few vague strands of hope within reach. "Maybe he escaped and he's still alive somewhere-"

"Then why hasn't he shown himself? Why haven't we heard from him since then? Even if the guards decided to imprison him instead of torture him to death, we would have heard something about it." Elphaba sighed deeply; the grief in her voice was fading, replaced by a kind of weary, despairing resignation. "No, Glinda; Fiyero's dead. Either he died under torture... or I botched the spell and it killed him. And that's the most damning thing about it: I could have saved him- I know I could have if I'd been quicker, if I'd been able to concentrate on the words of the spell... and instead I let him slip through my fingers."

In any ordinary situation, this would have been Glinda's cue to burst into tears. And why wouldn't she? She was still fresh from learning that she'd been party to Nessa's assassination; her best friend was teetering on the brink of madness and facing certain death at the hands of an angry mob; and now she'd learned that her fiancé (_former_ fiancé, she remembered with a fresh thrill of pain) was dead. By all rights, she should have been slumped against the wall, crying like a baby from the moment she'd heard the news. But she didn't- she _couldn't:_ the avalanche of bad news had virtually numbed her to all emotion.

She could only stand there, wondering if there was a chance that she might wake up soon, that she'd be back at Shiz, that Nessa and Fiyero would still be alive, and that Elphaba's hopes would still be intact.

For perhaps five minutes, near-total silence flourished in the hall; even Dorothy's sobbing had petered out during the last few seconds of debate, leaving the castle quieter than a tomb- except perhaps for the sound of the wind billowing through an open window and howling along a distant corridor. Had either of them realised that most of the windows were shut and the air outside was deathly still, they might have found the noise a bit curious, even troubling; but grief had virtually deafened them to the sounds of the outside world.

Eventually, Glinda finally found her voice again, and numbly asked, "Do you ever wonder if things could have been better?"

"All the time."

Morrible's face once again flickered in and out of Glinda's head, and one of her harsher rebukes stung her pride again: _"You were always going to end up working for us, my dear; this is the only career you'd have ever found, and it's the only lifestyle you'd have taken up. Don't get ideas above your station: you just keep smiling for that audience down there and shut up about Elphaba. It's bad enough that she discarded the Wizard's offer; it's even worse when I've got you wafting around the palace, reminding me that we had to settle for less-than-second best."_

Out loud, Glinda asked, "Do you think we'd have ended up like this no matter what we'd done?"

"Of course not," said Elphaba simply. "Things could have been different if I'd made the right decisions- if I'd cast the spell quicker, if I'd stayed with Nessa, if I'd accepted the Wizard's offer, if I'd been more careful... if I'd been stronger..." She hung her head for a moment, and somewhere in the distance, the howl of the wind intensified. "But what's done is done; there's no way of knowing what the world would be like if we'd made the right decisions- and not much point, either. It's too late."

"What do you mean?"

"There's not much more I can mean by that, Glinda; it's too late- for me. For everything I wanted to accomplish." She reached into her robe, and held out a small brass key. "That's for the cellar door, if you're still interested in saving the girl; it's not as if there's much point in keeping her locked away anymore. Just..." A myriad of emotions briefly warred for dominance of Elphaba's face; sadness won. "Just try and get her to bury the Ruby Slippers with Nessa. That's all I ask."

"But why can't you do that yourself? I can probably talk Dorothy into giving up the shoes, and you can-"

"The witchhunters are going to be here soon."

"I know that well enough, thanks, and that's why you've got to be out of here befo-"

Her eyes widened, as the implications of Elphaba's seemingly offhand remark sank in. "You can't be serious," she said quietly.

"I've never been more serious in my entire life."

"But... but... you don't have to do that; you can fly away, you can hide somewhere, you..." Glinda floundered for a moment. "You can't just give up and let them kill you!" she exploded.

"I'm getting very tired of running, Glinda; I'm tired of fighting battles that I'll never be able to win, and I'm fed up with preaching truths that nobody wants to hear. And besides, even if I did escape, they'd still catch up with me eventually; now that the Wizard's whipped the entire country into a witch-hunt, I doubt there'll be many places to hide." She smiled mirthlessly. "Maybe this way, I'll finally surprise them for a change: if they were to find me sitting in an armchair, reading a book, maybe sipping a glass of wine, how long do you think they'd wait before they finally plucked up the courage to charge in? Imagine how disappointed they'll be that the Wicked Witch of the West didn't give them a final showdown before dying."

A corridor or so away, the wind moan and howled loud enough to be heard even over the conversation; had either of them been in the mood to notice it, the two might have felt the world around them warp and twist ever-so-slightly.

Outside, the tears in reality were less than a foot away from converging.

"Elphaba, listen to me for just a minute," Glinda pleaded, oblivious to the madness encroaching on the castle. "You don't have to do this. I know places in the Emerald City where nobody will ever think to look for you- secret passages, safe-houses, disusified cellars- I can get you to any one of them without anyone ever finding out."

"And what if someone _does_ find out? You'll end up just like Nessa; they'll paint you as an accomplice from beginning to end and then they'll have you executed. Its better this way, you have to see that-"

"_No!"_ Glinda screamed, her smothered emotions finally exploding outwards._ "_I'm not going to leave you to die-"

"And I'm not going to let you ruin your life trying to protect me!" Elphaba screamed back, now having to raise her voice above the whistling of the wind. "I am not going to let another friend die because of me!"

A long and unpleasant silence followed; for twelve whole seconds, the two witches stood, locked in an impasse, each of them trying to will the other into giving in and accepting what they saw as the only sane option- neither of them having much success. And then, just as it seemed that one of them might give in, a tiny, almost inaudible sound split the air; to Elphaba, it sounded worryingly like dry cloth bursting into flame.

_Whoosh._

As one, the two of them turned in the direction of the noise-

-just in time to see the very centre of the room engulfed in vivid white light, a field of incandescent energies blossoming outwards from thin air, accompanied by a deafening roar of gale-force wind. As they watched, the light expanded dramatically: sprouting upwards at an incredible speed, it tore into the ceiling violently enough to shake the entire castle to its very foundations.

Cringing away from the blinding glow and struggling to stay upright, the two of them tried to retreat to the door, but without much success: whatever this light was, it had some kind of whirlpool-like gravity to it; no matter how far or how hard Glinda or Elphaba ran from it, they kept sliding back to their original positions- and ever-so-slightly closer to the growing field of light. The only thing they could do was stagger over to the mantlepiece and hang on for dear life as chairs, tables, bookshelves and every other bit of loose furniture went tumbling towards it. And as soon as an object slid beneath the glare of the light, it simply vanished.

"_What the hell is it?!" _Glinda shouted over the roar of the wind.

"_Your guess is as good as mine!"_ Elphaba replied.

Another tremor rippled through the ground beneath their feet, strong enough to send cracks racing across the floor, walls, and ceiling; dust rained down from the fracturing roof, accompanied by pebble-sized chunks of masonry- and one large enough to smash a passing vanity to splinters. The mural window at the centre of the room cracked, groaned and finally shattered into a blizzard of glass shards that immediately flew towards the light- missing Elphaba by inches.

"_Is there any way you can reach your broom from here?"_ Glinda howled.

"_Not anymore, I don't think! It just went past us! Is there any way you can summon the bubble from here?"_

"_It's not working!"_

There was a loud screech from overhead, and something winged and furry alighted on a distant beam - just outside the light's devastating gravitation.

"_Chistery!" _Elphaba shouted. _"Get out of here- now!"_

The flying monkey hooted in disagreement.

"_For Oz's sake, this is no time to be a hero! You can't save us; just get the other monkeys-"_

"_And Dorothy!"_ Glinda added helpfully, trying to ignore the sound of the walls giving way.

"_-out of the castle!"_

Chistery gripped the edge of the beam very hard, eyes visibly flicking between Elphaba and the open window that he'd just flown through. Finally he shouted an order through the window, and from outside, there was a barely-audible sound of flapping wings as the flying monkeys reluctantly departed. Then, just as Glinda was sighing in relief at the fact that Elphaba wouldn't have to see another friend die, Chistery turned back towards them and leapt from the beam with a daredevil screech of exhilaration.

In that moment, time stopped; Glinda swore that the entire universe ground to a halt just to let the insanity of that next second play out before her eyes: Chistery soaring towards them, only just managing to escape the effects of the light; Elphaba screaming in horror and frustration, one arm outstretched and shrouded with green light as if she was about to cast a spell; the walls cracking and buckling, a shower of rubble cascading from the roof; the impossible light at the centre of the room flaring wildly; the mantle was beginning to tear away from the wall...

Then, time was in motion again:

Quite unexpectedly, the mantle _didn't _tear away from the wall. Instead, the entire wall disintegrated into rubble and went hurtling across the room towards the light, taking Elphaba and Glinda with it. To his credit, Chistery managed to avoid being crushed by the hail of bricks or lacerated by flying glass shards, and arrived almost exactly in front of the people he'd intended to rescue; unfortunately, trying to contend with the weight of two full-grown human beings _and_ the inexplicable gravity turned out to be a bit beyond the flying monkey, and he too was sent tumbling towards the light.

In the few seconds before all three of them struck the light, Glinda looked up in terror at the _thing_ they were about to be swallowed by... and then, as if they were passing through a curtain, the light itself appeared to part around them. But instead of the other side of the room, she found herself staring out at a horizon of vivid colours and impossible, ever-changing shapes- as if they were somehow travelling past the lens of the largest kaleidoscope ever built.

And then, as she was gazing out at the spectacle unfolding before her with a sense of childlike wonder she hadn't felt since she'd first seen the Emerald City, something heavy slammed into the back of her head, knocking her senseless.

The "something" turned out to be none other than Dorothy Gale; having been unexpectedly sprung from prison by the collapse of the ceiling, she'd wasted no time in running for the exit as quickly as possible. Unfortunately, on her way out, she'd ended up being swept up by the expanding gravity of the light and sent tumbling into the multicoloured skyscape, bouncing off Glinda's head as she soared past them.

As such, the last thing Glinda heard before she blacked out was a familiar voice screaming _"Not this agaaaaaiiiiiinnn!"_

* * *

Fiyero could tell that something was wrong from the moment he'd seen the Flying Monkeys hurrying away from the castle; after all, unless they'd been sent out on another mass assault of some kind, they wouldn't have had much reason to leave Kiamo Ko- not with their ironclad loyalty to Elphaba.

But it wasn't until he saw the battlements crumbling inwards that he realized the extent of the problem. Now, light was pouring from every single remaining window in the castle, the walls were slowly crumbling into rubble, and the tower was undergoing a slow but inevitable descent towards the light-obscured compound below. And all of this was secondary to the one fact that had actually kidnapped Fiyero's brain: _Elphaba was still in the building._

Hissing an expletive, he put his head down and ran as fast as he could towards the collapsed gate of the castle. He wasn't sure what he was going to do once he got inside; after all, he had no idea what had started the collapse, what was producing the light, or if he'd be able to survive approaching it- even in his current condition. Truth be told, he didn't much care: all that mattered was making sure Elphaba was safe.

And somewhere in the dust cloud the Scarecrow had left in his wake, the Tin Man, the Lion and Toto took to their heels and charged after him.


	2. Memories Of Another Life

A/N: And here we are, ladies and gentlemen- the second chapter. I hope it hasn't taken too long and I hope you enjoy my progress in developing the story; I'm trying to be a little quicker in updating than I was with my last story from hereon, but we'll see how I do as the chapters go on. So, without further ado, our first glimpse at the making of a parallel universe- read, review, and above all, enjoy!

Disclaimer: _Wicked_ 'tis not mine.

* * *

_Elphaba was in flight._

_Below her, the forest she'd just emerged from seemed to _unfold _before her eyes as she accelerated towards the clouds; it was as if the land beneath her had become a map, every natural landmark, every forest, every lake, every mountain suddenly reduced to a drawing on a sheet of paper. _

_And it wasn't just the world that seemed to change: as she soared across the sky, every single doubt and concern in Elphaba's mind was swept away in a great tide of euphoria, just as they had been when she'd first defied gravity. When she was in flight, nothing could dent her confidence: she was invincible and unstoppable, beyond the reach of the Wizard and his flailing lackeys; nothing could touch her- and more importantly, nothing could bring her down. And no matter how hard the day had been, how many close calls she'd experienced, whatever failures and defeats she'd been subjected to, it all vanished the moment she left the ground._

_How long had it been since the day she'd first ascended? Two weeks? Two months? Two years? For all she knew, it could have been two centuries since she'd left the palace and entered the life of an outlaw and a rebel. Two months, probably- two months worth of triumph, of rescued animals, broken cages, silenced voices suddenly speaking again, and even the adoring cheers of those she'd saved from the "treatments" that had awaited them. _

_But, as she'd expected, there'd also been hardships: sleepless nights on the run, humiliating retreats, brushes with death, the battles when she'd stopped _just_ short of killing someone... worst of all, the spirit-crushing moments when she'd tried again and again to explain to the people of Oz that they were living a lie, that the Wizard was nothing but a fraud and the Animals of the country were being systematically eradicated- only to be met with deaf ears, wilful ignorance, and angry mobs._

_But she soldiered on: after all, she had a mission to accomplish... and even if a day's work came to nothing, she still had the skies. True, it wasn't exactly a substitute for any of the friends she'd left behind, but Elphaba had long since decided that it was best to take comfort in what little she could find._

_So, off she flew, slower than usual in the hope that the euphoria would last a little longer. She wasn't entirely sure if she had a tangible plan for what to do next once she went on the offensive again, but at present, she'd just be happy to find a safe haven before nightfall- or before she passed out from sleep deprivation. After almost two whole days awake, she was pretty much at the end of her tether._

_So, what could be classified as a safe haven? An abandoned farmhouse? A chicken coop? Some tall grass that hadn't been trampled down?_

_Just as Elphaba was starting to wonder if she'd have to enjoy another rainy night under the sky, something in the forest canopy below her shifted and moved. Something was hauling its way up a tree- something worryingly human-shaped. And, as it swung itself over the upper branches, Elphaba realized that the figure had a rifle slung over its shoulder._

_Muttering a swearword, she put her head down and accelerated. She didn't know if this was one of the Wizard's men, or some kind of vigilante; quite frankly, she didn't care. So long as she wasn't anywhere near him when he opened fire, she'd be perfectly content wi-_

_Somewhere directly in front of her, there was a loud bang._

_Elphaba skidded to a halt and spun around in midair, trying to find the source of the gunshot: every instinct still running after forty hours awake told her to get the hell away as soon as possible, to fly away as fast as the broom could carry her before any of these people shot at her again; other parts of her brain slightly out of touch with reality ordered her to stay put and look out for more snipers – after all, there might be dozens more, just waiting to riddle her with bullets if she flew the wrong way._

_And then the first jolt of pain shivered along her right leg. Slowly, Elphaba looked down and saw that the first shot hadn't missed her at all: even with the black dress and stockings she wore, it was impossible for her not to realize that her left thigh was now sporting a fresh bullet wound._

Run! _Her mind ordered. _You've just been shot, you idiot! Run before they hit you again! This is no time to go into shock!

_No sooner had she thought these words, when another gunshot sounded, this one whistling by her face. This time, Elphaba finally took her own advice and flew off at high speed, trying to ignore the searing pain in her leg. As she flew, more gunshots split the air around her: clearly she'd been right about there being more snipers hiding in the trees below._

_But how many of them w-_

_This time, there was no delay in reaction: when the bullet sliced through her right shoulder, Elphaba felt the pain immediately- white-hot and searing like molten metal. Instinctively, she swerved hard to the left in an attempt to throw the sniper off, but with the muscles in her arm no longer responding correctly, this manoeuvre sent her crashing through the upper branches of a tree and into the canopy- neatly dislodging her from the broom in the process._

_Tumbling helplessly through the air, she fell, first through the boughs of the nearest tree, then the remaining ten feet of emptiness all the way to the forest floor. She landed heavily on one leg with a loud crunch of breaking bones, a fresh thrill of agony rippling through her as she toppled to the ground in a heap._

_Groaning in pain, she sat up, and- once she'd managed to catch her breath- inspected her injuries. All things considered, they were as bad as she'd expected: on top of the gash torn in her shoulder and the bullet lodged in her left thigh, her right leg was indeed broken. On the upside, the fractured bone hadn't torn through her flesh; unfortunately, the leg was now bent at an odd angle, making it entirely useless for walking. This, combined with the wound in her _other_ leg and the loss of her broom, made escape highly unlikely._

_For thirty seconds, she lay there, flickering in and out of consciousness as she tried to imagine how the day could possibly get any worse._

_And then she heard the footsteps._

_Under the camouflaging nets of branches and leaves draped across them, all eight snipers wore the crisp green uniforms of the Wizard's guards; and while they were still armed with long-barrelled rifles, at least two of them had drawn knives from their belts. Worse still, none of them were holding anything that could be used as a set of restraints._

"_We got her!" one of them whispered breathlessly. "We actually got her!"_

"_Shut up and grab her arms," snapped another. "I want this done cleanly."_

"_The hell with that," another hissed. "She doesn't deserve quick and clean. Let's have a bit of justice for what happened in the Vinkus- gut her like a fish and strangle her with her intestines."_

"_Would you shut up and grab her arms so I can-"_

_Elphaba had heard enough: forcing herself into a sitting position with her one good arm, she swept a hand through the air and sent a ball of fire hurtling towards the advancing guardsmen. The five of them immediately scattered, each of them flinging themselves away from the oncoming missile; one man moved too slow, and rose to find that net of camouflage leaves upon his back was now aflame, and spent a good thirty seconds attempting to put himself out._

_Meanwhile, the other men were already scrambling to their feet; almost none of them bothered firing their rifles- after the last unpleasant surprise, few were stupid enough to risk a fireball to the face- they just charged as fast as their legs could carry them. Elphaba let her magic sweep across the guardsmen once again: a blast of kinetic energy sent two cartwheeling back across the forest, the roots of a tree snatched another off his feet, a cloud of dust and leaves blinded and disoriented the few who'd decided to use their rifles, and everyone scurried for cover as a hail of fireballs descended upon them._

_But the defence couldn't last: by now, the guards had learned their lesson- they weren't clumping together anymore, and instead of trying to tackle Elphaba head-on, they attacked from all sides. And with Elphaba herself unable to move and growing steadily exhausted from sleep deprivation, blood loss and magical overexertion, it was only a matter of time before one of them got lucky._

_Seconds later, one of them did: sprinting in from the left, the guard crashed into her, tackling her to the ground. With only one arm still functional and both her legs useless, the struggle was over in a matter of seconds; then, with the guardsmen holding her by the arms, the others proceeded to beat the living daylights out of her._

_There were no preliminaries: nobody was interested in passing any kind of official sentence, none of them asked questions, and scarcely any of them bothered even threatening her. They just started hitting her with whatever was in reach- fists, feet, rifle-butts, even tree branches; they didn't even give her a chance to scream in case she managed to cast a spell: the moment she opened her mouth, even if it was only to cry out in pain, one of them would lunge forward and punch her in the mouth or knee her in the stomach. For the next three and a half minutes, they pummelled every last inch of her, pausing only to break her fingers and tenderize her kneecaps with the butt of a rifle._

_Eventually, though, after the first seventy-five seconds, Elphaba was so dizzy from blood loss and blows to the head that she honestly couldn't feel much anymore; so, barely conscious, she let the assault carry on while her mind drifted elsewhere._

_And then, just as she was beginning to wonder if the guards were actually planning on killing her, a voice rang out: "STOP!"_

_With some difficulty and a distant echo of pain from her neck, Elphaba turned towards the source of the noise: there, panting from exhaustion and uncharacteristically ruffled, stood none other than Fiyero Tiggular._

_For a moment, Elphaba thought that she was hallucinating from blood loss. After all, what were the odds that Fiyero would turn up here of all places? And wearing a captain's uniform as well? No, any minute, her vision would clear and she'd find herself staring up at a stranger. But it didn't: the apparition stubbornly refused to vanish. Indeed, it actually stepped closer to her, now joined by a gaggle of other figures- all of them guardsmen, and most of them still shrugging off the camouflage nets they'd been wearing up until then._

"_What the _hell_ are you people doing?" Fiyero demanded. "You heard the orders- we were told to capture her alive!"_

"_She fought back," one of the rebellious guardsmen whined. "I mean, look what the bitch did to my nose. We couldn't capture her when she was hurling magic at us, could we?"_

"_Besides," said another, "It's not as if anyone minds if we bring her in with a few broken bones."_

"_Fine," snapped Fiyero. "Perfect. I want you to remember those words, Private, because if Elph- if the Witch dies before we can get her back to the Emerald City, you're going to be the one explaining things to the Wizard."_

_Somewhere to Elphaba's left, one of the guardsmen turned to the man next to him, and whispered, "Oh, as if he'll care. She's dead, and that's all that matters. Who knows, maybe he'll promote us for-"_

_Without saying another word, Fiyero turned around and slugged the man hard in the jaw. "For what?!" he yelled. "For disobeying orders? For killing an unarmed prisoner? For _ignoring your commanding officer?_"_ _He took very deep breath; as he visibly tried to steady his temper, Elphaba reflected that in all the time she'd known Fiyero, she had never seen him so angry. "Just... just get out of my sight," he growled at last. "Get back to the convoy and take a good look at the map; we're going to need a hospital _very_ soon."_

_As the hapless guardsmen sprinted off into the forest, Fiyero knelt down beside Elphaba, and at long last, she got a good look at the expression of mingled concern and horror on his face. "Elphaba," he whispered. "Can you hear me?"_

"_Y... yes," Elphaba gasped. Trying to speak brought the pain into sharp relief, she realized. Along with the sharp jolts of pain that flickered through her ribcage whenever she breathed in too deeply, her face felt horribly bruised and battered; the guards mightn't have had the time to actually break her jaw, but they'd certainly made a concerted effort in that direction._

"_I'm sorry," Fiyero was whispering. "I'm so sorry, I didn't know you were going to be coming this way, I didn't want this to happen, you have to believe me-"_

" '_s okay," she muttered. "I'm ac... actually... really... happy to see you again..." And in spite of herself, she smiled._

_Her eyelids fluttered, and she felt her consciousness begin to drift again. This time, she couldn't resist the desire to sleep: after everything that had happened in the last few minutes, combined with sleep deprivation, emotional exhaustion and physical shock, she simply couldn't keep her body from shutting down any longer._

_A few hundred miles above her, Fiyero's voice turned urgent: "Elphaba? Elphaba, stay awake- you can't afford to black out now. Elphaba? _Elphaba!" _He looked up at the surrounding guards._ "MEDIC! _We need a medic down here _now_! Elphaba, stay with me..."_

_But Elphaba was flying again, away from her broken, pain-wracked body and into the sky from which she'd fallen scant minutes ago. Once again, she saw the land unfold beneath her, all landmarks becoming perfectly visible even as the voices of those below faded into nothingness: she saw the Emerald City, with its glittering spires and turrets, its monumental buildings and thronging crowds; she saw Shiz, the vine-draped walls that graduates still recalled with drunken nostalgia; and she saw the long winding path of the Yellow Brick Road, leading back into the fields and pastures of Munchkinland, back towards the place she'd once called home. _

_Finally, the Governor's mansion loomed on the horizon of her mind's eye: her childhood home, in all its weird and sorrowful glory. Her pace finally slowed, and Elphaba began the lugubrious procession across the grounds towards the front door. She didn't know what she was doing here, or even if this was some kind of afterlife, or just the last delusional gasp of her collapsing consciousness; she could only float along the garden path, listening to the sounds of the real world slowly fade into echoes as she drifted up the steps and clambered up to the door._

_She was distantly aware that, somewhere in the land she'd just departed from, her body had finally been removed from the forest and was now lying in the back of a cart. She could feel- vaguely at best- Fiyero's hand clasping hers, and the jab of a syringe in her arm; someone was evidently trying to wake her up, but Elphaba knew that it was too late for any of that._

_As she reached towards the doorhandle, she felt her heart slowing to a crawl, gently thudding to a stop. _

_Soon, the people of Oz could celebrate the death of the Wicked Witch of the West._

_Slower still._

_Soon, Nessarose would be without an older sister._

_Slower._

_Soon, Glinda would hear the news... and then-_

_Elphaba's heart pounded feebly, rekindled for a split-second, but dwindling yet again._

Glinda... I'm sorry...

_Slower- almost motionless, now._

_The door swung open._

_Full stop._

_Darkness._


	3. In Unknown Lands

A/N: Third chapter is here, ladies and gents; it's been interesting developing this one, but as always I can only hope its up to standards. As always, feel free to review and give me your opinions on how it's going and guesses as to what might happen next- the thought of them is what gets my corroded old heart started in the morning.

So, without further ado, read, review and above all, enjoy!

Disclaimer: _Wicked_ is not mine. Sometimes I believe my brain is not mine, but the lawyers can neither confirm nor deny this.

* * *

Much to Elphaba's surprise, it was the sound of birdsong that woke her.

Groaning, she sat up. Immediately, several realizations hit her at once:

Firstly, she was still alive, astonishingly enough.

Secondly, she had a headache that felt as though someone was gently driving a nail into the back of her skull.

Thirdly, for reasons currently unknown, she was now sitting on grass.

Fourthly, there was a light breeze sweeping in from the west- another factor indicating that she was now outside.

Fifthly, for some reason, she was hearing birdsong from somewhere very nearby; Kiamo Ko hadn't seen much in the way of birds or birdsong in the last day or so.

Sixthly, much further away, a train whistle was sounding.

Suddenly driven by urgency, Elphaba forced her eyelids open and immediately regretted it: all of a sudden, the invisible man who'd been hammering a nail through her head changed position and went to work on her eyeballs. The glare from the sunlight didn't help much, either.

Once the glare had faded, she found herself sitting in the middle of a field under a cloudless sky, her body almost lost amidst the long grass. Close examination revealed that she was surrounded by a small halo of rubble and other junk: most of the wreckage appeared to be comprised of objects that had been nearby when the light had first appeared in the castle hall; tables, chairs, shelves, a chandelier, and the scattered contents of Elphaba's rucksack- including the Grimmerie.

To her relief, a glance to the left revealed that Glinda and Chistery were lying right beside her, still unconscious but otherwise unharmed; less welcoming, however, was the sight of Dorothy Gale in a similar condition not too far away.

Deciding to survey the area further, she sat up and found that a few dozen feet behind her lay a vast forest of densely-packed trees; perhaps two hundred feet ahead of her lay a railway line- and much further along it, a five-car passenger train had stopped. Nobody appeared to have left it just yet, so she was probably safe for the moment. But where the hell was she? As far as she could remember, there weren't any railways within miles of Kiamo Ko. More to the point, where the hell was Kiamo Ko? The last she'd seen of it, the entire building had been collapsing, but when a castle that size fell apart, it was guaranteed to leave some pretty distinctive ruins. So where were they?

And how had she gotten here? The last thing she remembered was tumbling into the light with Glinda and Dorothy as Kiamo Ko exploded around them; then, there'd been a dream- a very strange dream of being shot down, beaten up and _dying_... and Fiyero had been there. After that, she'd awoken to find herself in this field.

Fair enough, the light had magically transported herself across Oz. It sounded logically plausible enough, assuming there was any recognizable logic to whatever had happened to them. And yet...

Her eyes flicked to the opposite end of the track: about thirty feet away, a small brick hut stood- presumably an engineer's station or a guard post of some kind. That wasn't too unusual by the standards of railways; what had caught Elphaba's eye was the flagpole nearby: even without the aid of binoculars or a vision spell, she could tell that it was not flying the traditional flag of Oz. A brief whisper of magic revealed that the familiar emerald-green banner with its Z-Inside-O emblem was gone; in its place was a white flag marked with a golden sceptre, which in turn was surmounted by a gilded, mask-like face.

Either the local government had unexpectedly decided to design a new national flag and had the time to send one out here before Elphaba had regained consciousness...

Or this wasn't Oz.

In which case, where the _hell_ was she?

As she pondered this question, Glinda stirred. "Elphie?" she mumbled. "Izzit time for magic class yet? Wanna sleep just a little longer... Tell Morrible 'm not gonna make it..." Her eyes fluttered upon, and awkwardly hauling herself upright, she looked out at the unfamiliar landscape for the first time.

"What happened?" she asked. "Where are we?"

"Your guess is as good as mine; I don't recognize this place at all. Even the flags don't look familiar."

"The _flags?"_

She wearily pointed in the general direction of the flagpole. "I don't know about you," she said, as Glinda took in the details of the fluttering pennant, "But I'm pretty sure the Wizard hasn't decided to make any drastic changes to the country's emblem."

"Well, if we're not in Oz anymore, where are we? I mean, how far could that light have carried us? More to the point, what was that light in the first place?"

Elphaba gritted her teeth, and made a noise at the back of her throat normally only produced by industrial accidents and freak thunderstorms. "_I don't know,"_ she said forcefully._ "_Okay? If I learn anything that might answer your questions, I'll be sure to tell you immediately; until then, Glinda, I'm just as much in the dark as you are. Now, _please_ shut up and help me find my atlas; hopefully, we're still within charted territory..."

So they set to work in silence, the two witches awkwardly fossicking through the heaps of smashed furniture and scattered rubble, looking for anything that might resemble an atlas. Along the way, they gathered up as many of their belongings as they could: Glinda her wand, Elphaba the Grimmerie. Unfortunately, the broomstick hadn't survived the journey intact: the most the two of them could of it was the handle, snapped cleanly in half by a ton of shattered bricks.

Halfway through the search, Chistery regained consciousness; so, Elphaba went about bringing him up to date with everything that had happened thus far and checking him for injuries. Fortunately, he didn't seem badly hurt; he was slightly bruised about the wings and scratched across the knees and elbows, but that was the most of his injuries. Dorothy, on the other hand, remained both unconscious and unresponsive.

Eventually, Glinda looked up from the pile of junk she'd been sorting through, and asked, "Do we really have to keep looking here?"

"Why, have you broken a nail again?"

"Very funny. But seriously, there's a train right over there, in case you hadn't noticed; we can easily just walk right up and ask for directions."

Not for the first time that day, Elphaba found herself exasperatedly massaging the bridge of her noise. "Ginda," she sighed, "Do you seriously think I'd be able to get within ten yards of that train without starting a panic? Even if they don't know that I'm the Wicked Witch of the West, they're bound to ask questions."

Glinda at least had the decency to look embarrassed. "Well... I mean, if _I_ walked up and asked for directions... that would work, wouldn't it?

"It depends on how far outside of Oz we are right now. If you're recognized, they'll start asking questions, they'll find me, and before you know it, its pitchforks and torches time all over again."

"Well, just stay out of sight, then! They shouldn't be able to see you from up there, and besides, it's not as if I'll tell them about you or how to find you or anything like that." A brief spasm of pain inexplicably flickered across Glinda's face for a moment; then, before Elphaba could ask what was bothering her, the expression was gone. "It'll only take a minute or two," she continued briskly, "And if I don't find out anything, we can always have Chistery have a look around the place."

Chistery hooted in agreement.

"You see?"

Elphaba took a deep breath, and mulled over her options as best as she could; under different circumstances, she'd have dismissed Glinda's suggestions on general principle, gotten on her broomstick and scouted the area for any recognizable landmarks from above. But right now, her broomstick was in pieces, and she didn't want to exert Chistery's bruised wings too soon just in case he lost control and crash-landed; that left her with the singularly unpalatable option of allowing Glinda to stick her hand in the proverbial hornet's nest. But apart from wandering aimlessly through the forest or along the railway for the next few hours, this was the only real option they had at this point.

"I'll give you two minutes," she said firmly. "Check out the train, speak with the crew, ask for directions, and walk right back here; if anything goes wrong, don't try to talk your way out, don't try to fight them off- just run. If you're not back in two minutes, I'll be coming after you with as much fire and lightning as I can handle. Clear?"

"Crystal."

"Good. Now go- and _please_, be careful."

"Elphie, it's a train. What could possibly go wrong?"

And before Elphaba could groan, _"Did you really just say that?"_ Glinda had hitched up her dress and started running, moving at a brisk jog towards the railway line.

* * *

Perhaps twenty feet away from the train, Glinda realized that something was wrong: quite apart from the fact that it didn't appear to have a smokestack, cowcatcher or anything else that most Ozian locomotives were usually equipped with – though admittedly, it had been a very long time since Glinda had been anywhere near a passenger train, thanks to her Bubble – it was clear that the crew was trying to get the engine started again, without much success.

Furthermore, there appeared to be something of a panic looming: even at this distance, she could clearly hear the sounds of shouted orders and expletives from the crew, and see the anxiety on the faces of the passengers looking out the window. Glinda could tell that the mood of the crowd had nothing to do with arriving at the station late; she'd seen this kind of unrest before – often during Elphaba's so-called reign of terror, when the Wizard's propaganda machine had some people too scared to even leave their homes. But since this wasn't Oz, what were these people so scared of? What were they trying to escape from?

_Focus, Glinda; you're here to ask for directions and then walk away. Don't get distractified, don't waste time._

By now, she was almost right next to the engine, a streamlined, black-armoured creation that looked more like an upturned boat than anything designed to run on rails; much to Glinda's surprise, running along the machine's sculpted flank were – of _all_ things- gold filigree and bas-relief carvings of statuesque, heroic figures. Clearly this wasn't just a run-of-the-mill passenger train: this was something much more special; maybe some wealthy nobleman's private train or perhaps a government model used by diplomats- or even heads of state.

_And_ _they're armed, too,_ she realized with an unpleasant jolt to the heart: behind the thick-paned windows of the engine, she could clearly see that most of the crew were holding rifles. They were obviously expecting trouble out here, but once again, Glinda had to wonder: from what?

Of course, staying here and wondering wasn't going to do her much good, now that she had less than a minute a half to go before Elphaba came after her. So, pausing only to hastily brush a few errant leaves from her hair and check her dress for rips and tears, she edged around the train towards what appeared to be a door, took a deep breath and called out, "Hello? I was wondering if you could help me-"

The door shot open, and Glinda suddenly found herself staring up into the business end of a rifle. "Who the hell are you and what do you want?" hissed a voice from the other end. "Stay still, talk fast, keep your hands where I can see them, and I'd better like your tone of voice, or you're dead."

Glinda blinked rapidly. "I'm Glinda Upland," she said, trying to sound as unthreatening as possible. "Of the Upper Uplands," she added helpfully, just in case this place was close enough to Oz for the locals to know about her family.

"Never heard of you. What do you want?"

"I've gotten lost, and I was just hoping for directions."

The rifle lowered slightly. "Fair enough. Where were you planning on going, exactly?"

"Well, anywhere within Ozian territory would be nice, but-"

"_Where?"_

"Oz," Glinda clarified. "The Land of Oz."

Given that the rifle had been in the way for most of the conversation, Glinda hadn't seen much of her assailant's face. But now the rifle had lowered, she could clearly see the look of utter confusion that was spreading across the guard's features. "Where exactly is that supposed to be in relation to this country?" he asked.

"I... don't know," she admitted sheepishly. "I don't even know how I got here; I just woke up in that field over there."

"Really?" A note of suspicion trickled back into the man's voice. "Wouldn't be the first time that it's happened but-"

From somewhere over the crewman's shoulder, a voice said, "Vesh, what's taking so long back there? Who is she?"

"It's another random teleport, sir; I think the Hellion's been at work again- but this one's from outside the country."

"She look human to you?"

"Pretty much."

"No signs of Distortion?"

"Sir, as far as I can tell, she's a perfectly ordinary human; if she'd been Distorted, door security would have picked it up."

"Then get her inside _now!_ We're almost ready to go, and I just got word from the border that there's a raiding party inbound."

The guard blanched, and without a second glance in Glinda's direction, he stood back from the entrance to allow her inside. "You'd better get onboard," he advised her.

"But-"

"Please, this really isn't the time to argue; I've seen what these bastards do to their enemies in battle - bloody hell, I've seen what they do to _themselves_ for fun- and believe me, you don't want to find out what they do their prisoners. Just get on board."

Glinda took a deep breath; this conversation wasn't turning out the way she'd hoped. She'd been here well past the two minute time limit, and Elphaba was probably already on her way with all the fire and brimstone she could muster- against armed guards, no less; and worse still, there was a raiding party about to attack them, another unpleasant detail Elphaba didn't know about. Glinda didn't know what was going on or where it was happening, but bailing out wasn't an option. She had to stall for time. "I've got a friend waiting back there in the field," she explained. "She's not too-"

But the rest of her explanation was lost in a deafening explosion that shook the ground and almost knocked Vesh out of the train. A quick glance around the corner in the direction of the noise revealed that less than fifty feet away, the solid-looking brick hut at the opposite end of the track had exploded, and now lay in a blazing heap of rubble and debris- the parts of it that weren't descending on the train in a hailstorm of shrapnel.

"Shit," Vesh whispered, eyes wide and face pale with terror. "Look, if this friend of yours is taken prisoner, the border patrol might be able to save her, but- _Oh sweet Empress, they're here!"_

Glinda obligingly peered back around the corner: there, not far from the spot where she'd regained consciousness, a small army of unpleasant-looking figures were charging out of the forest, shouting incomprehensible warcries and waving their weapons in the air. It was too far away to recognize exactly what they were or how many of them there were, but Glinda could tell that they were heading directly for the train- and Elphaba was standing in their way.

And then, without so much as "by your leave," Vesh grabbed her by the arm and hauled her into the train, slamming the door shut behind him. As Glinda struggled to free herself from the grip on her wrist, there was a loud rumble from the engines and a cheer from the distant passengers and crew alike, the train was in motion.

"There," the security guard panted. "At least we're safe for the_- oooooof!"_

As Vesh sagged to the floor, hands clasped over his crotch, Glinda made a beeline for the nearest exit; she didn't care what might be waiting outside- all that mattered at this point was reaching Elphaba and getting her to safety. No luck: the door had locked as soon as it had been shut.

"How do I open this thing?" she shouted.

"Don't – oww – bother," Vesh groaned. "It only unlocks from the primary control panel."

"Then take me there, right now-"

There was a polite cough from somewhere nearby. Glinda looked up from the bewildering array of locks and bolts keeping the door shut, and realized that she was being stared at by no less than seven anxious-looking crew-members- all of them hiding a number of badly-concealed firearms under their crisp blue uniforms. The engineer, an older man with a peaked hat and a gold pin affixed to his necktie, stood up from his station at the frontmost control panel; "Wherever your friend is right now," he said solemnly, "We can't help her. If that raiding party's got explosives, or – Empress save us all – artillery, they'll blast us off the rails before we can even get close to 'em. There are almost four hundred people on this train; do you really want to get them all killed?"

"Well, you don't _have_ to turn back," said Glinda desperately. "Just drop me off right here-"

The engineer shook his head. "Even if you could reach them in time, Miss, there wouldn't be a damn thing you could do to help her. I don't know how many of those savages are back there, but last I looked, there were at least twenty of them: you'd be outnumbered and outgunned- and I'm not prepared to let a passenger on this train throw their life away for nothing."

"I'm _not_ throwing my life away for nothing! She's-" Glinda's mind raced. She had to think of something that could get these people to change their minds- _anything, _even if it was an outright lie: she hadn't been willing to leave Elphaba to die back at Kiamo Ko, and she wasn't going to do it now. After a few seconds of biting her lower lip, she eventually decided on the truth. "She's one of the most gifted witches in all of Oz!" she said, emphatically. "Don't you think that's worth stopping for? I mean, aren't trained magicians valuable to the government here-"

"They are," one of the other crewmembers interrupted. "Trouble is, they're also valuable to the enemy, and if they've gone this far into the border-regions in search of loot, I don't want to find out what they'll do to people who try and retrieve it- and neither do you."

"But if you just let me explain, she-"

The engineer held up a hand. "I'm afraid there's nothing you can say or do that can possibly convince any of us to turn back _or _allow you to leave this train, and that's my final word on the subject."

Glinda briefly fought the urge to scream; she couldn't have been in this country for more than twenty minutes, and she'd already lost her grip on the situation. "So I'm supposed to just sit here and let Elphaba die?" she said, distantly aware of the hysterical note to her voice. "Is that it?"

Vesh moaned, and awkwardly staggered to his feet. "It's not over just yet," he wheezed. "There's the border guards for one thing, _and _the Vigilant Eyes; if your friend's still alive, it'll be the Eyes that save her."

There was a chorus of agreeing mumbles from around the room.

"In the meantime," the engineer continued smoothly. "You're free to stay with us until we stop in Exemplar; we might be a bit short on space, but I'm sure you'll fit right in with the passengers. If you've got any questions, don't hesitate to ask an attendant. Or Vesh, once he's gotten himself an icepack for amidships. Now, if you'll excuse us..."

And with that, Glinda was unceremoniously led out of the cabin and into the plush, red-carpeted first car. _Here I go again,_ she thought despairingly, _wagging my tail and doing as I'm told, keeping myself safe and sound while Elphaba faces down an army. Glinda, you stupid, selfish _bitch_..._

* * *

Elphaba was already halfway across the field when the building exploded; with fifteen seconds left on the clock, she should have kept still for a little while longer, but she honestly couldn't bear another moment of waiting. She couldn't stop her imagination from conjuring up scenarios in which the train's passengers decided to attack Glinda for one reason or another, and by the final seconds of the countdown, she'd almost reached the point in which they'd cornered her in the final car and were now menacingly advancing on her, ready to kill her or worse...

So, she'd started running, with Chistery in hot pursuit. Admittedly, she didn't know exactly what kind of defences the train possessed, or even whether or not the passengers and crew were armed; as such, the only thing running through her head for the next few seconds was a long list of anything she could do to stop Glinda's assailants- in short, everything she'd ever used in her long struggle against the Wizard.

Then, of course, the hut exploded, and the world went completely mad.

As if on hinges, Elphaba turned to see the distant forest suddenly alive with shouting figures, all of them clearly armed to the teeth; they were still too far away for her to tell who they were, or even _what_ they were, but Elphaba could clearly see one of them pushing something that looked uncomfortably like a cannon - and aiming it at the train.

Mind almost blank with horror, she swivelled back towards the motionless locomotive, wondering frantically if Glinda was still onboard; she had to be, otherwise she would have started running by now- unless something truly horrific had taken place. Then, to her mingled relief and dismay, the train at long last thundered to life, at first only trundling placidly down the rail, but gaining speed with every second. The cannon opened fire again, but the gunner clearly wasn't up to hitting a moving target, for though the ground near the fleeing train erupted into flying dirt, nothing hit the train itself. Eventually, it was out of range, and moments later, out of sight too.

For a moment or two, Elphaba stood there, despairing at having been separated from Glinda again and hoping against hope that the train's passengers and crew weren't going to hurt her. Then, with another jolt of alarm, she remembered the army that had been charging towards her, and took to her heels, with Chistery once again flying after her.

Thankfully, most of said army had been preoccupied with taking pot-shots at the train, so Elphaba still had something of a headstart. But she knew that it wouldn't last forever: with the broomstick in pieces, she could only run so far before she tired or the horde caught up with her. So, muttering a few choice incantations to give her an extra burst of speed and fuel what little stamina she had left, she put her head down and charged towards the forest.

Even once she was past the first few trees, she didn't stop until she was certain that the forest was thick enough to restrict the enemy's movement. Then, pausing only to shoo Chistery away to the safety of the treetops, she turned to face her pursuers: here, with so many trees in the way, they wouldn't be able to surround her so easily; here, she'd have time to cast her spells before any of them reached her. With the gap in the canopy directly above her, she might also have enough light to read a spell from the Grimmerie. Of course, the trees also gave the enemy a lot of cover, but then again, if she was fast and violent enough, she might be able to bring down a tree or two on top of them. If nothing else, she'd be able to do some damage and slow them down before she carried on running.

At long last, the enemy was in reach, and by now she could see that there were almost forty of them; thanks to the darkness of the canopy, it was hard to discern their features, but from here it looked as though they were wearing elaborate suits of armour beneath their tattered black cloaks. She could see gauntlets made to resemble vulture's talons, tiger's claws, crab's pincers, even tentacles; breastplates coated with rank fur or carved with scales; helms shaped into bestial snarls and nightmarish faces. And there were other things adorning those grotesque armouries, things that Elphaba could scarcely even guess at: trophies of human ears and flayed hide, by the looks of things, and hearts that were somehow still beating.

_Who the hell _are_ these people?_

She gave herself a little shake: she couldn't get distracted by all this- she had to concentrate on spells, she had to think of strategy, she had to...

...to...

Suddenly, all the fight seemed to leave her.

What exactly was she planning on doing? Fighting off all three dozen of them? Trying to outrun them in territory they knew a lot better than she did? And even if she could do either of those things, what the hell was she supposed to do next in a country she knew nothing about? Was there anything _worth_ doing? Her fight was still lost, Fiyero and Nessa were still dead, and now Glinda was gone: there was no foreseeable way of learning where that train was headed, and even if Elphaba could follow it, even if Glinda was still alive, would she really be able to find her in whatever metropolis the train disembarked at? And what about Chistery? Without her broom, Elphaba was a liability, a great big weight that would drag him down wherever they went. Now without his brothers and sisters to help him, he was vulnerable, and as long as Elphaba was forcing him to stay close to the ground, he wouldn't stand a chance of surviving in this unknown land.

Maybe it would be better if she finally put that suicidal idea of hers into motion: maybe she should just let these people kill her. It'd be better for everyone involved. With any luck, it'd be quick and painless... and if she had a soul – and if there was something waiting for that soul after death – perhaps she'd see Fiyero again...

She'd been staring at the ground for the last minute or two, she realized; so, taking a deep breath, she looked up, intent on meeting her killer's gaze.

And sure enough, there was a figure stepping out of the crowd that now milled around her; he was one gauntleted hand was outstretched in supplication, the other held a rifle. Two more figures edged towards her from her left and right, probably to hold her arms while the first man shot her.

"Right then, miss," the first man announced. "You've led us on a merry chase, so credit where credit's due. But you can't run forever, and you can't fight us off. So, just give yourself up, and we'll work out a ransom."

Elphaba didn't answer. Instead, she did the most threatening thing she could do without raising her voice, short of actually launching a fireball at the man: she channelled all the magic she could into her arms and let it flare outwards in a vivid emerald glow, tiny sparks of energy crackling off her fingertips. As the crowd surged backwards in alarm, the men flanking her lunged, grabbing her by the arms as their leader advanced on her.

"Not a good idea, ma'am," he growled. "Even if you are a witch, it's not a smart thing to do, not when your life's on the-"

He paused, and then peered curiously at her. Then he gently reached out, and removed Elphaba's hat.

Up until now, Elphaba's face had been left in shadow by the brim of her hat and the light from the canopy overhead. But now she was bareheaded, the crowd had an unhindered view of her face, and already she could hear the gasps of shock and disbelief- just as it had been whenever she'd had to show her face in public.

But something was different this time: the gasps weren't followed by disgusted mutterings or angry shouts; the people around her didn't seem afraid or even disturbed. If anything, they seemed amused.

Their leader, meanwhile, was still surveying his newest captive. Slowly, he reached out and touched Elphaba's face, gently rubbing the skin as if to check that she wasn't wearing makeup. Then, after almost thirty seconds of inspection, he smiled.

"Damn it girl," he laughed, "Why didn't you say you were one of us?"


	4. Friends and Foes

A/N: Another chapter at the start of the month, ladies and gentlemen! I had a lot of fun with this one, too; writing gory descriptions is one of the many things I look forward to, and this chapter is no exception. I'm trying to reveal the details of this strange new world as gently and smoothly as possible, but you'll have to be the judge of how well I'm doing. As always, I thank you for your reviews, and ask only that you continue providing them so generously:

Wile E. Coyote: As I said, I'm slowly revealing details of this world, but I _will_ reveal what world this story takes place in... soon. (evil laughter)

Nami Swannn: Just wait and see; that'll be the subject of this very chapter.

So, without further ado, the latest chapter: friends and foes, allies and enemies, and all manner of other colourfully grotesque things to be found in this unknown land!

Read, review, and above all, enjoy!

Disclaimer: I cannot lay claim to _Wicked_ for it is not mine.

* * *

Elphaba had not expected this, to say the least.

The moment she'd turned to face the oncoming brigands and let her magic blaze across her limbs, she'd been waiting for the inevitable hail of gunfire that would erase her from existence; when they'd grabbed her arms and held her still while their captain approached, she'd thought – _hoped – _that they were about to cut her throat. But no, they'd spared her life, not exactly the most predictable course of action from the people who'd just blown up a railway building and tried to do the same thing to a fleeing passenger train.

And what about the way they'd reacted to her skin? By now, people staring at her was nothing new, but this had to be the first time when those stares hadn't been accompanied by disgusted muttering or (more recently) terrified screams. Furthermore, what the hell had they meant by _"why didn't you say you were one of us?"_ And once again, who _were_ these people?

It was at that point, just as Elphaba's sense of credulity was about to implode, that a few members of the crowd shuffled forward in an attempt to get a closer look at her face; as they stepped into the light, Elphaba got a good look at _their_ faces as well- and realized with a jolt of shock that she'd been wrong: apart from the light cuirasses they wore beneath their ragged black cloaks and tunics, they had very little in the way of armour; certainly nothing to suggest the fearsome helmets and masks she thought she'd seen beforehand.

Here and now, she could see that those nightmarish features weren't part of their armour at all: they were extensions of their bodies.

All around her, the brigands' flesh was marked and mutilated in all manner of impossible ways: many had faces that looked as though they'd been borrowed from wild animals, with the jaws of wolves and bears the most common, although Elphaba could see a few hooked raptors' beaks and sharklike maws among them; some had heads adorned with deer antlers, bull horns, feathery crests, or even piscine fins; skin coated in reptilian scales, thick furry pelts and various kinds of feathers were also common, with the odd insect carapace here and there; a few had been disfigured in a much less orderly fashion, their faces left a jumbled mixture of warped flesh, randomly-sprouting teeth, compound eyes, pulsating glands and venom-dripping spines. The limbs of the brigands were no less diverse: talon-like nails, fingers distended into tentacles, scythe-like claws, pincers like those of crabs and lobsters, fists fused into knobbly mace-like growths of bone and cartilage, snapping crocodile jaws in place of hands; there were even a few that had no hands at all- just stumps with weapons jammed into the flesh of the arm, from hooked blades to wide-barrelled guns. And the patchwork of deformities didn't seem limited to the organic or the crude, either: several arms were clearly made of steel and brass, either skeletal frames with clockwork innards of whirring gears and cogs, or full-fledged metal limbs with hissing pistons and puttering engines; in the nearest faces, copper eyeballs swivelled in their sockets, and glass retinas whirred and clicked as they focussed; and there were much more complicated machines incorporated into some of the bodies of those around her, most of which Elphaba didn't recognize.

At once enthralled and horrified, she could only gape and once again ask herself: who were these people? What had _happened_ to them? Was this magic- something like the magical transformations that she'd cast on Chistery and Boq? Was it new technology? Or was there something even more disturbing at work in this strange country?

The brigand captain was eyeing her with great interest. Out of all them, he seemed the most normal: true, the gauntlets which had at first appeared to cover his hands were clearly mechanical prosthetics, and his neck appeared to be threaded with copper wiring, but that was all Elphaba could see. Of course, the man wasn't exactly pretty sight either: his shiny-bald head was covered in old battlescars and long-healed wounds, from the jagged line slicing the bridge of his nose in half to the conspicuous lack of ears on either side of his head.

"Tell me," he said, leaning closer, "Just how long did that take?"

Elphaba swallowed hard. "I'm sorry, what?"

"How long did it take for you to get the skin right? It's a very impressive job, whatever method you used."

Murmurs of agreement issued from the other brigands; one of the closer ones – a spindly woman with azure-coloured scales running along the length of her arms and face – whispered, "It's clearly not a total skin replacement; I mean, you can still see the veins through it."

"Perhaps it's an enchantment," rumbled an enormous brigand, its features and gender hidden behind massive folds of elephantine hide.

"Maybe so," said another, his words garbled by the writhing mass of fleshy tendrils that covered his lips. "But if you ask me, it looks like a dye."

The captain shook his head. "No, I think you'd have to make a lot of injections to dye the entire face, and I don't see any..." He paused, then reached out and grabbed Elphaba's wrist. "Your hands _too?"_ he said incredulously; he began rolling her sleeve back up along her arm, gasping with surprise at the emerald-green skin beneath it. "Have you had your _whole_ _body...?"_

"Her neck..." someone whispered.

"...It's dyed all the way down..."

"It can't be just dye; it _has_ to be an enchantment."

Elphaba, who'd been a little too taken aback by all the attention to respond, suddenly realised that the ringleader of the group was now peering down the neck of her dress. Modesty- coupled with a deeply-ingrained dislike of being stared at - kicked in: "Do you mind?!" she yelled, shoving the brigand away.

"And she blushes, too!" a voice in the crowd exclaimed, to gales of laughter.

"Sorry, ma'am," the captain chuckled. "It's been a while since we've seen anything like that as far as alterations go; I'm honestly not sure how you did it, but maybe we've just been out of the workshops too long to see what the surgeons have been cooking up of late. Then again, maybe you can tell us what we've got to look forward to, right? Of course, we'll have to get into what mission you were sent on to end up all this way past the Radiant Border sooner or later, but pleasure before business, that's what I always say-"

"How I did _what_?"

There was a stunned silence.

"... this _is_ an alteration, right? I mean, it's clearly not makeup, so that's logically the only way you could have ended up-"

Elphaba barely stopped herself from shouting her next words, only just managing to resort to an indignant snarl of "I was born like this."

Another stunned silence followed, broken only by the faint conversation among the brigands, most of which consisted of remarks to the effect of "What?" "How?" or "No wonder she's so far away from the cities, the poor dear." As the moments dragged by, Elphaba could clearly see their leader reassessing her, as if trying to determine if she was a threat or not; for her part, she did the same- assuming there'd be any way of guessing if the crowd would turn on her for admitting her skin wasn't an "alteration," whatever than meant. Then, with a spark of insight, the logical definition of the term suddenly flickered into her brain.

"Hang on," she said slowly. "You did this," she gestured vaguely at the bewildering array of deformities and prosthetics that adorned the crowd, "_All_ of this... to _yourselves_?"

"Not all of it," said the blue scaled woman, a tad defensively. "Mage-surgeons took care of what we couldn't change on our own."

"But why?"

"You don't know?"

"Well I'm _asking _you, so obviously I don't know!" Elphaba closed her eyes, and tried to steady her temper for a moment or two. "As a matter of fact," she continued, "I don't know where I am, who you people are, why you're here, why _I'm_ here, or how I got here. All I know is that I woke up just outside this forest a few minutes ago, and then you started blowing things up: that's about the sum total of what I know about this country. So, if it's not too much trouble, could you please explain what the hell is going on and why?"

The captain was once again looking at her with undisguised curiosity. "Where exactly are you from?"

"The Land of Oz." Seeing only blank stares in response, Elphaba tried to clarify, but there honestly wasn't much she could explain without making it embarrassingly apparent that she was in fish-out-of-water territory. In the end, she got as far as identifying the four major regions and the capital before giving up.

"And you say you've never been in this land before you woke up in it?"

"That's right."

He chuckled, and exchanged knowing glances with the blue-scaled woman. "Hellion," they said in perfect unison.

"Who?"

"Nevermind that now, ma'am; we shouldn't stick around here asking questions for too long: by now, the alarm's probably been sounded, and the reinforcements will be on their way any minute- and I very much doubt they'll be pleased to see you. Point is, if you want answers – and safety – you need to come with us. I'll explain everything once we're out of enemy territory and back into the Deviant-lands; then with a bit of luck and a lot of magic, we might be able to figure out some way of sending you back home. How's that sound?"

Elphaba bit her lip: the offer was reasonable enough, and it certainly seemed the only logical way of getting to safety; but there were other ideas clamouring for attention in her head, none of them anywhere as reasonable, but all of them worryingly tempting. Her despair, briefly exiled from the front of her mind by the shock of the last few minutes, now demanded to know how anything could improve by following these strangers- or by any other course of action except lying down and awaiting death. Her cynicism also barged its way into the mental spotlight, insisting that they stall for time and try to figure out who these people were before joining them. And finally, her desire to see Glinda again started whining to be heard.

"I need to know something about the train you shot at: my friend was on-board asking for directions when it took off; do you know where it's headed or where she might be able to disembark-"

The brigand leader's expression darkened. "Aye, we know. It's headed straight for Exemplar, capital of Unbridled Radiance- and before you ask, _no:_ we're not following it any deeper than we already have. We're a raiding party, not a suicide squad."

_Oh well,_ Elphaba thought sadly. _I didn't really think it was going to be that easy, did I?_

"This friend of yours," the captain went on. "Does she have green skin too?"

Elphaba shook her head.

"Good. She'll have a decent chance at surviving if she keeps her mouth shut about knowing a green girl; maybe she'll get lucky, bump into some of the deep cover men we've got in the cities, and maybe you'll see her again someday. 'Til then, you've got to keep yourself safe too, and that means going over the border with us." And for the second time that day, he extended an iron-skinned hand in entreaty. "So, what'll it be?" he asked.

There was the briefest of pauses, as Elphaba silently weighed her options: this time, despair was overshadowed by the chance – however vague and distant – to see Glinda again. Tentatively, she reached out and shook the offered hand, to relieved sighs from the crowd and a crooked grey-toothed smile from the captain.

"Well then," he said briskly, "I suppose you'll be wanting to know who we are if you're working with us for the time being." He offered a wry salute: "I am Captain Malford Marl, duly-sworn officer of the Deviant Nations' armies, proud member of the Irredeemables and commander of this raiding party. And these here," he indicated the crowd, "Are the finest and craziest bastards the Irredeemables have to offer."

The crowd laughed, and the blue scaled-woman rolled her eyes. "You're so damn generous with compliments these days, boss," she said, over the roar of guffawing.

Marl ignored her. "With that out of the way, ma'am, who are you?"

Elphaba took a deep breath, and absent-mindedly wondered if giving her real name would make any difference in a country where nobody knew anything about Oz. Eventually, she announced, "My name is Elphaba Thropp, known to the doubtlessly good and enlightened people of Oz as the Wicked Witch of the West."

There was another smattering of laughter and applause from the raiding party.

As the noise died down, she nodded up at the treetops where Chistery was still hiding. On cue, the Flying Monkey swooped down from the canopy, landing beside her to great gasps of astonishment from the crowd. "And this," she continued, "Is my friend Chistery."

"Damn it," Marl chortled. "Do you have any other friends hanging around waiting to be introduced, or is that the last of them?"

Elphaba thought for a moment. What she was about to say was very much against her better judgement, considering just how much grief the little brat had given her over the last twenty-four hours... but even with all those past grievances in mind, it still didn't seem fair to abandon her in the wilderness and leave her to face down any reinforcements that would be coming to investigate. Plus, she still had the Ruby Slippers.

"As a matter of fact..."

* * *

For the second time in almost as many days, Dorothy Gale found herself cowering behind a tree and wondering how she'd ended up in this position.

She'd awoken, perhaps fifteen minutes ago, to a distant hubbub of explosions and shouts; with the witch's castle nowhere in sight and the sound of an obvious battle nearby, she'd at first thought that her friends had managed to rescue her and were now fighting it out with whatever army the Witch could muster. Then she'd taken a good look around and realized that not only was the landscape completely unrecognizable, but there was an army charging right towards her.

Acting on instinct, she'd flung herself back down into the long grass and hoped to God that somehow the soldiers wouldn't see her as they passed. Astonishingly enough, the plan worked, if only because the army seemed more interested in chasing the hastily-departing train than looking to their immediate right. The moment they were out of earshot, Dorothy had scrambled to her feet and ran as fast as she could towards the forest, vowing not to stop until she was absolutely certain nobody was following her. Thanks to the over-the-should glimpse of the army turning around and charging back towards her, this took some time.

Panic took her past the outskirts of the forest and deep into the trees, diagonally away from the entrance and away from the sounds of her pursuers. Eventually, she found herself stumbling to halt against the roots of a tree and realizing that she could no longer see or hear any sign of the army; unfortunately, she also realized that she was now so deep into the forest that the light from the canopy was almost gone, leaving her in dusk-like gloom. Worse still, there was no sign of the forest's edge from here, and thanks to the low light, no footprints to be seen.

Now leaning against the tree which she'd fallen upon, she could only take a deep breath and try to figure out what to do next. So far, there didn't seem to be any ideas forthcoming: after all, she wasn't just lost in the forest, but stranded in yet another strange and unrecognizable land, on the run from that rampaging army and likely the Wicked Witch of the West too...

Worst of all, her friends were gone and there was little chance that any of them would find her.

She was alone.

And somehow, impossibly enough, she was now even further away from home than ever before.

Dorothy Gale took in a deep, shuddering breath that sounded more like a sob than anything else, and tried to blink away her tears.

Then, she heard the sound of footsteps echoing through the forest from somewhere very close by- and getting steadily nearer. Edging around the trunk of the tree, she peered into the forest, hoping that it wasn't one of the soldiers, _praying_ that it might be someone friendly- a hunter, or another traveller, or at the very least someone who knew the forest. _Please let it be the Scarecrow,_ she whimpered silently, _or the Tin Man, or the Lion; please let it be one of my friends._ But glancing around the side of the tree, she couldn't see anyone, even though the footsteps were still getting closer.

She briefly considered calling out to whoever was out there, but then she remembered the army that was still out there and no doubt looking for her, so she stayed put, waiting for the wanderer to step out of cover and hoping that nothing unfriendly had seen her.

As if in response, something laughed.

"_**Is**_ **t**here SOMEONE hid_i__**n**__g_?" a voice purred. "**S**om_e_o**n**e _play_**ing** HIDE-**and**-seek?"

The voice was unlike anything Dorothy had heard before, for it seemed to change as it spoke: at first, it was deep and thunderous; the next second, it was high and sing-song; then it was whispery and grating; then low and buzzing like an insect; then weirdly chorused, as though a dozen people were speaking at once; for a second or two, it sounded almost normal; and then it was back to deep bass again, with perhaps a few new tones of voice in between; sometimes the change of voice came quicker, sometimes slower. And there seemed to be yet another voice beneath those wild and chaotic swings in pitch and tone, but it was almost impossible to hear. In any case, Dorothy was immediately on edge.

_Maybe if I just stay here and don't make a sound, it'll lose interest,_ she thought. _Maybe the army will pass by and distract it, or scare it off or something..._

The high, distorted laugh sounded again. "No _p_oint **in** hiding, SWEET _little_ d_**ol**__l_," cooed the voice. "I **see** _y_our _rac_ing little h_e_**ar**t; _**it's**_ **pounding** so very _f_ast..."

_Oh God,_ Dorothy thought, heart pounding just as loud as the voice insisted it was.

"**Sh_ow_ **yourself to **me**, _now_... don't **be** frightened. **COME OUT**!"it roared suddenly, voice booming like a thunderstorm. "**COME OUT, COME OUT, WHEREVER YOU ARE AND MEET THE YOUNG LADY WHO FELL FROM A STAR!**"

Dorothy couldn't take it any more: all but wrenching herself away from the tree, she put her head down and ran for her life without stopping to get a good look at the source of the voice; she didn't know where she was going or what was no doubt following her- all she knew was that she had to get away somehow.

Hurtling along the crooked, root-studded ground, she could hear the footsteps following her, accompanied by the sound of _claws_ clicking against the back of the tree-roots. Terror overriding all sense of precaution, Dorothy screamed into the trees "HELP! SOMEONE _HELP!"_ She didn't care if the only people that could rescue her were the army that had chased her in here to begin with- anything was better than whatever was chasing her right now_._

"**Wh**_at_ **the Hellion** wants, **the Hellion** _takes_!" the pursuing voice cackled. "What **the Hellion** _takes_, **the Hellion** KEEPS! And _what _**the Hellion** KEEPS..."

A massive hand shot out from behind and clamped down hard on Dorothy's right shoulder, spinning her around; at the same time, another arm snaked under her back, hoisting her into the air- lifting her slowly but surely towards the source of the voice.

"... **The Hellion** _bleeds_," the awful chant concluded.

Dorothy opened her mouth to scream, but the sound died in her throat as the monster's face dipped into view.

Two luminous yellow eyes stared back at her from a face that was had been stripped of all skin, leaving only bloody meat and muscle in its place (_Just like those cows at the butchers_, Dorothy thought absently). Hairless, noseless and with a mouthful of boarlike tusks instead of teeth, it barely resembled a human being; the rest of the monster's body was no exception: quite apart from the mess of gore and bone that made up its chest and arms, the creature had no legs- just two more pairs of arms as bloody as the first. And none of those arms touched the ground: the monster was floating at least three feet in the air, its elongated lower body curling and twisting like the tail of a fish. Occasionally, the thing's last set of arms would reach down and thump the earth, producing the sound of footsteps that Dorothy had heard earlier. But worst of all, somehow worse than every other aspect of the monster that now held her attention, was the blood: the creature was covered in it, weeping it, bleeding constantly from every inch of raw muscle and leaving an oily red trail wherever it went and over everything it touched including Dorothy, leaving crimson handprints all over her dress and her face and filling the air with the dark coppery metallic stench of _blood._

More than anything else in the world, Dorothy wanted to struggle. She wanted to wriggle out of this monster's grasp and run until she was out of the forest and back into the sunlight, or until she found someone who could help her, or until she collapsed. But she couldn't struggle: she couldn't even move. And it wasn't fear that was doing this- though God only knew she was terrified at that moment; the moment the creature had grabbed her, Dorothy's entire body had gone numb and still, limp and helpless as a ragdoll in the monster's arms.

"_Swe_et little **doll**," it said, almost tenderly, stroking Dorothy's face with blood-oozing fingers. "**Darling** little _thing_." It craned its neck to look closely at the captive in its arm, its head swaying from side to side like a snake; as it did so, something very odd happened: as it moved, the monster's head left behind it a trail of flickering, transparent afterimages; each one faded in about a second, but for every move the creature made, wether with its head or its hands, a couple more ghostly afterimages replaced then. "I've _got a **place**_ on **my** _shelf _all_ ready for you_..."

_I'm going to die, _Dorothy thought. _I'm going to die and Aunt Em is never going to know what happened to me._

Then, without warning, a deafening volley of gunfire split the air; with the numbing touch of the monster still at her spine, Dorothy couldn't tell who was shooting or at what, but she could tell that the gunfire was from somewhere very close by.

"Let the girl go, Madam," said a strident voice. "I very much she's fit to be one of your dolls."

Dorothy blinked. _"Madam?"_ she thought incredulously; her eyes flitted to the creature's skinless chest and realized that yes, the monster was, in fact, a woman.

Meanwhile, the monster's face had twisted into a scowl of hatred. **"WHAT THE HELLION TAKES, THE HELLION KEEPS, PATCHWORK MAN!"** she roared. **"_I_ decide what is fit to join my collection!"**

"That's as maybe," the would-be rescuer replied, "But you can't fight off all of us, Hellion. Give the girl up, or we'll be forced to open fire."

"**I've **_fac_ed worse than **guns** and knives and **stitchlings** and mech-_things_, **Patchwork man**," the Hellion sneered. "I've faced down _as_ many _wa_**rrio**rs as **this** before, remember? _Half_ of _**them**_ made good stew, _in the end_; and the rest- the _**boys**_ playing at being men- they're some of _my_ **prettiest** dolls now. _The_ _**little**_ g**ir**l wants to be **pretty**, **I'd** wager. Don't _you_ **want to be** _pretty_, little _girl_?"

Dorothy wanted to scream every variation of the word "no" she'd ever learned in her life. But in that moment, the Hellion pressed one long finger into her spine, and suddenly it was as if Dorothy had been transformed into a ventriloquist's dummy. "I want to be pretty," she said, her mouth no longer responding to her mind's commands. "I want the Hellion to keep me and love me and make me part of her doll family and stay with her forever."

"_**Good**_ **girl**," the Hellion purred. "Who _are_ warriors- be they of **Radiance** _or_ of the **Deviant Nations**- to disagree _**with**_ the wishes of a girl? Who **would** _refuse_ such a sweet _child_?"

There was a pause, and then a familiar voice rang out across the forest: "A _witch_ might. Feel like tangling with a witch?"

There was a tense pause, as the Hellion's gaze swept from left to right. Then, she sniffed the air- as if she could smell something even through the cloying musk of blood that surrounded her. "**I'll** _let_ you have her... FOR NOW. You'll give her **back** _to_ **me** _**of**_ your _own_ fr_ee _will, **though**- _the_ girl's thoughts **say** you'll be wanting _these..."_

And with that, she reached down and plucked the Ruby Slippers from Dorothy's feet; there were no sparks, no signs that the Slippers had magically resisted her as they had the Wicked Witch of the West. She simply took the shoes off, to angry shouts from her rescuers and incredulous whimperings from Dorothy herself. Then, without another word, the Hellion _flung_ Dorothy away.

She landed heavily in the dirt perhaps six feet from the monster, her head thumping painfully against stones and the roots of trees as she rolled to a halt; as she did so, she saw the Hellion turn and float away, leaving a thick trail of blood on the ground and flickering afterimages in her wake, her four lower arms sweeping gracefully as she moved- as if she were swimming through air.

Dorothy wanted to scramble to her feet at that point- if only so she could thank whoever had rescued her, or at the very least wipe the blood off her face. But she still couldn't move: she could only blink and whimper vaguely, struggling to force out the faintest sounds from her almost-frozen throat.

And suddenly, she was surrounded by hideous faces- the very faces of the army she'd been trying to run from. On the upside, they'd rescued her, so perhaps this wasn't nearly as bad as she'd thought it would be. And yet...

... Those monstrous faces... Dorothy could scarcely bear to look at them...

"Why isn't she getting up?" one of them said.

"It's something to do with that madwoman's touch," muttered another. "It deadens the nerves, you see- keeps them still and quiet until she wants them to move again. 'Course, it doesn't always work like that. I've heard some cases that last a lot longer- sometimes forever."

"You mean this is going to be permanent?"

"I didn't say that; I just said it might take a while until she can move on her own."

"You saw what the Hellion was like just then," grumbled another soldier. "She doesn't like her toys being taken away from her; maybe she wanted to break the girl before she handed her over. She's a spiteful bitch, to be sure."

"Watch your mouth, Haxford; there's a child over here, in case you hadn't noticed."

"Sorry, Captain."

"But what are we going to do with her?" a woman's voice asked. This one was standing just out of Dorothy's sight, and because her body still refused to move, she couldn't crane her neck to look at her. Again, she couldn't shake the feeling that she'd heard this voice before, but where and when?

"You'll just have to carry her," said the Captain.

"_Me?_ Why me?"

"You were the one who wanted to bring her with us."

The voice was halfway through responding, when there was a loud _whoosh_ from overhead, and suddenly, the dark forest was suddenly bathed in blazing orange light: the canopy was on fire, and something above it was burning through the branches and leaves towards them.

"It's the Vigilant Eyes!" someone shouted.

"Godsdammit, I thought that skinless bitch gave the girl up too easily," the Captain snarled furiously. "She must have smelled them coming. Everyone scatter- NOW!"

And instantly, the forest was alive with movement, every single soldier charging in a different direction. As they moved, the fire among the trees had finally cleared a hole in the canopy big enough for the "Eyes" (whatever they were) to descend: and so they did, lowering themselves into the forest and hovering just like Glinda's bubble had.

There were three of them: each one was an elegantly-made ball of ivory and silver, a little smaller than a cartwheel. As they drew closer, Dorothy could see that they had been carved with tiny cherubs and winged horses all along their bodies, complete with a eight-inch wide pair of silver angel wings mounted on their backs; in the centre of each ball, a delicately-carved glass lens sat, swivelling this way and that to examine the figures beneath it. Dorothy, for her part, was baffled by the army's reaction to these things: they seemed more like toys than anything else, and their lazing, bobbing movements looked too comical to be dangerous, so why was everyone running?

And then one of them spoke. "Deviation detected," it intoned in a pleasant, almost friendly voice. "Please halt and submit to the Judgement of the Empress."

"You have been tainted," said another. "Through the lies of the Treacherous One, you have been led to imperfection and sin."

"But rejoice," said the third. "We have come to cleanse you of all corruption and suffering, for we are the Empress's mercy."

A few of the soldiers stopped to fire at the Eyes, but for the most part, they were too small a target to hit, and those few shots that connected bounced harmlessly off their plating. Then, the Eyes returned fire: their lenses suddenly glowed red, and disgorged a solid beam of angry red light; everything the light touched instantly burst into flame.

For the next few seconds, the Eyes went on launching flame at the fleeing soldiers: from what little Dorothy could see, the soldiers were good at avoiding the Eyes' fire, ducking and weaving under the beams and hiding behind the trees, but she still saw at least two of them collapse to the ground in flames.

And then the gaze of the Eyes turned towards _her. _But before Dorothy had time to even think of the fire that would eat her alive, she heard that same familiar voice- the one that had refused to carry her- suddenly shouting and swearing in anger; in the next instant, someone was scooping her into their arms. Dorothy couldn't see who it was, but at that point, she wasn't all that interested in looking a gift horse in the mouth.

For a moment, there was silence as the Eyes slowly shifted their attention to Dorothy's rescuer.

Then, without warning, the glow vanished from their eyes and all three of them retreated back into the canopy, stopping only to extinguish the fires they'd started, smothering the flames with jets of grey steam that sprouted from nozzles in their flanks.

There was a long silence as the army slowly crept from their hiding places and began crowding together again, making a count of the dead and wounded as they went.

Apparently, they'd been lucky: none of them had died in the attack, although "Aggie" and "Doorface" had been badly burned and would probably need medical attention soon. "It's just as well we were out here in the forest," said the captain. "If they'd caught us out in the fields or in open country, they'd have burned us to ashes in about five seconds flat."

He turned to Dorothy, a curious expression in his scar-circled eyes; he wasn't looking at her, though, but at the woman who now held her in her arms. "But why did they leave?" he wondered aloud. "Why did they stop when they saw you, exactly? You're not exactly deviation-free, in case you hadn't noticed."

As she replied, the woman gently shifted Dorothy in her arms, and as she did so, Dorothy got her first good look at her face- and immediately gasped in mingled shock and disbelief.

Her rescuer was none other than the Wicked Witch of the West.


	5. Tales To Be Told

A/N: I'm sorry this update's arrived so late, ladies and gents, but it's been a pretty busy fortnight; this chapter's a bit on the short side by my standards, but for those of you who were wondering what the hell's going on this story, its meant to explain a few things about the setting before we get any deeper into it - and to foreshadow the truth, of course. Any guesses you might have are always welcome, as are your reviews.

So, without further ado, read, review and above all, enjoy!

Disclaimer: _Wicked_ is not and cannot be mine.

* * *

"Where are we going, exactly? I mean, you've told me we're crossing the border, but you haven't exactly told me where we'll be going once we've managed that. And another thing - is it going to be all on foot? Because I think my arms are about to drop off."

They'd been walking for almost half an hour: they were still wandering through the depths of the forest, with most of the Irredeemables being too busy hauling equipment or injured comrades to hold much of a conversation; the rest were busy keeping a close eye on the surrounding trees and the canopy above, just in case the skinless "Hellion" or the "Eyes" returned. For her part, Elphaba hadn't minded all that much: she'd been preoccupied in lugging Dorothy Gale around – not nearly as easy as she'd thought it would be. For one thing, the girl was a lot heavier than she looked, proving quite a strain on the muscles in her arms after a while ("That's what they don't tell you about kids," a woman with porcupine quills for hair had laughed. "They're like baby elephants.") Much more annoyingly, the paralysis hadn't extended to her throat, so the girl spent half the time whimpering in terror; the other half was spent with her eyes clenched shut, as if she were hoping that this was all a nightmare that she would eventually wake from the next time she opened her eyes. It was after one of the louder whimpers (during which, one of the child's bony elbows had ended up lodged squarely in Elphaba's jaw) that she'd given in to frustration and broken the silence.

A grotesque smile briefly rippled across Captain Marl's scarred face. "We're heading home, Miss," he grunted. "Back to the Deviant Nations – more specifically, the barracks in Greenspectre. In the meantime, the transport shouldn't be much further; I'm pretty sure we landed it just a couple of hundred yards from here."

"While we're on the subject of the Deviant Nations, would it hurt to explain a few things to me?"

"Like what?"

"Like _anything:_ the Hellion, the Eyes, the Deviant Nations, your enemies, why you blew up a railway building and why you were about to capture and ransom me before you changed you minds... I just need a few answers; you don't have to give me the keys to the kingdom or anything like that – I'd just like to know why any of this is happening."

Marl hesitated, briefly exchanging glances with some of the other members of the group. Elphaba had seen that tentative, all-too-meaningful look before: they didn't trust her. Question was, what had changed since they'd first met her? Maybe this had something to do with the Eyes refusing to kill her, or maybe the information she was asking for was too sensitive. Whatever the case, Marl eventually turned to the woman with blue scales marching opposite Elphaba. "Vara," he announced, "You've got all the relevant details memorized; tell her what she wants to know."

If Vara had any objections to acting as a mobile helpdesk for clueless newcomers, she didn't voice any of them; she simply turned to Elphaba and started talking. "Let's just start with the basics," she said briskly. "I'll assume you understand that we're in a country called Unbridled Radiance, yeah?"

"I won't ask how the country ended up with that name, but yes, I think I got that."

"Well, to put a very long and boring story short, we're at war – have been for decades, truth be told. Unbridled Radiance wants to expand its borders and force its laws on the countries it absorbs; the Deviant Nations are a coalition – a family, really – of all the governments that chose to resist imperial expansion: in fact, a few of the nations actually used to be part of U.R. before the Radiant Laws were passed and kicked off the secession movement."

"And what laws were they? I mean, why did those governments object to them?" _And why didn't the others?_ Elphaba wondered.

"The laws against _this,"_ said Vara flatly. She pointed at her face, at the gleaming cyan scales running along the curve of her cheek; then, as if to clarify, she pointed at Elphaba's face. "U.R. doesn't take kindly to deviations from their precious "True Image." They don't like "the low mingling with the great," or "the foul existing as insult to the purified," and they certainly don't like it when "the great of spirit but low of body" aren't allowed to claim their so-called true potential. Breaking any of the Radiant Laws is punishable by death, or worse, re-education." She laughed, briefly affecting a pompous, declamatory voice that – to Elphaba – sounded uncannily like Madame Morrible: "Crimes against beauty shall not go unpunished, citizens!" she yapped mockingly. "Beauty is Goodness and Goodness is Beauty!"

"So that's what those Eye-things were talking about back there?"

"Exactly: the Vigilant Eyes were built specifically to seek out and destroy wilful deviants. Worse still, they've been stationed in every single town from here to Exemplar, and unless you've got enough guns and enough cover, it's just about impossible to bring them down."

"Hang on a minute; you said they hunt down "deviations"... but you weren't born like this right?"

"None of the Irredeemables were born deviated; hospitals in U.R. have a very strict policy to ensure that any infants with recognizable deformities don't stay that way for long." A spasm of pain flitted across Vara's reptilian features, and she sighed deeply. "No, we made ourselves like this, just like Captain Marl told you: either we hired a mage-surgeon to alter our bodies, or we performed the operation ourselves."

Elphaba opened her mouth to respond, but then thought better of it. Vara clearly noticed the puzzled expression on her face, though, because she laughed and said, "I know what you're thinking: "Why did you have yourselves altered? Why didn't you stay normal?" It's the same question we get asked from every refugee, deserter or defector who left the U.R. to take shelter in our midst. And the answer's always the same, too: rebellion." Her tone changed, slowly growing fierier and more passionate with every word she spoke, until every sentence audibly clanged with revolutionary fervour. "All the Deviant Nations reject the Radiant Laws," she proclaimed, "but we take our rejection further and greater than any before: _we_ reject the very notion of the "True Image"; our bodies aren't the property of some high and mighty Empress - they're _ours_ to do with as we please, and to spite the enemy, we sculpt them into any form they would call ugly and heretical. They've called us Irredeemable for it, and we bear that name with pride, because we are the elite of the Deviant Nations' armies: we oppose Unbridled Radiance not just in word and deed, but in body."

And despite everything that had happened in the last few hours, Elphaba found herself struggling not to laugh: on top of finding herself worlds away from Oz, by some amazing coincidence she'd somehow ended up in the company of fellow rebels; true, they weren't exactly espousing the same cause, but the sheer improbability of the whole thing still brought a smile to her face. Out loud, she remarked, "Fair enough. It makes sense... of a sort. But tell me, how did all this begin? I mean, you said that some of the Deviant Nations seceded from the country; what was it like before those laws were passed?"

"There's not much to tell, in all honesty. As far as I know, the laws were passed about fifty years ago when the Empress was first crowned; we haven't actually been at war that long – it's been an on-and-off conflict truth be told, but the Great Mentor will be able to tell you more about it when we get back to Greenspectre."

"Okay... but what about the Hellion? How does she fit into the whole equation? What does she want?"

"You might as well ask a rabid dog what _it_ wants: nobody has the slightest idea where she came from, how she lost her skin, how she got her powers, or even what her real name is. She certainly isn't interested in explaining herself. She just does whatever the hell she feels like: she steals, she kills en mass, she puts the corpses on display, she breaks down fences, she makes milk turn sour, she teleports people from one town to another, she pulls all sorts of pranks... and she collects "dolls." I don't know what she does to the people she kidnaps – come to think of it, I don't want to know; all I know is that nobody who she's marked as a doll and successfully captured has ever come back alive."

Dorothy, who'd clearly been listening, whimpered loudly. Doing her best to ignore the noise, Elphaba asked, "Does anyone know where she lives?"

"Not to my knowledge. People have been trying to hunt her down for years on end, and nobody's been able to find her hiding place - and that's assuming she even has one: there's been sightings of her in the Deviant Nations, there's been sightings of her in Radiance, there's been reports of her in No-Man's Land..." Vara shrugged. "What can I say? She's a well-travelled monster."

_So that means there's not much chance of finding the Ruby Slippers unless the Hellion decides to show her face again. Great._

And then, just as Elphaba was beginning to wonder if there'd be any chance of seeing Glinda again either, Yara tugged on her sleeve. "We've arrived," she whispered. Up ahead, the forest dwindled away into a clearing large enough to accommodate a house. And right in the centre of that clearing was...

Back in Oz, the countless stories about the Wizard and his rise to power had always started with him arriving in a hot-air balloon; in fact, on that first tumultuous visit to the Emerald City, the same balloon had actually been put on display as part of exhibition celebrating the Wizard's reign. The "transport" that the Irredeemables had finally reached looked vaguely similar, in the sense that there was a massive gas-filled balloon tethered to it, but as Elphaba pushed aside the branches and shrubs blocking her view, she realized that this was where any similarities to the old museum exhibit came to an end: instead of a basket, the balloon was tethered to what looked like a wooden sailing ship; perhaps a hundred feet long from bow to stern and equipped with an impressive array of propellers and engines, it was clearly big enough to accommodate the Irredeemables. As for whether it could actually _fly, _Elphaba could only guess at that point.

"... is this really what we're meant to be crossing the border in?" she asked quietly.

"I know, it's a bit run-down," said Captain Marl. "But that's pretty much the idea: it's supposed to look like a cargo airship bringing supplies to the expeditionary forces; that way, we don't get shot down trying to enter or leave the country."

_And air travel is commonplace here. I can actually _feel _my uniqueness value decreasing._

Meanwhile, a small knot of figures clustered near the railing of the ship (presumably the skeleton crew left to guard it) lowered a gangplank, allowing the Irredeemables to go about boarding. A few stayed behind on the ground, though, either to detach the mooring lines, or to help move their injured comrades or the heavier equipment pieces. For her part, Elphaba was unceremoniously escorted up the ramp and onto the creaking deck of the airship as quickly as possible.

"How long is this journey going to take?" she asked.

"Oh, hours," said the captain. "Easily four or five, if weather conditions are stable enough; we're not just crossing the border, we're crossing the No-Man's Land that separates the Deviant Nations from U.R. In the meantime, I'm afraid we don't have any bunks left in the crew quarters, so you and your friend will have to stay in the brig for the time being."

Having barely managed to bite back a snarl of "she's not my friend," Elphaba found herself bristling with frustration yet again at the prospect of sharing a room with Dorothy Gale for the next five hours. But at that point, she wasn't in the mood to argue or to admit to the unpleasant details of how the girl had arrived in Oz; so, she forced a smile and said, "Fine. So long as I can put this girl down at some point in the near future, I'm not too picky."

As the crew readied themselves for takeoff and Vara began guiding Elphaba down the staircase leading into the ship's cavernous sleeping quarters, a thought struck her. "By the way," she said hesitantly. "You mentioned a "Great Mentor" a little while ago-"

"One of the most important figures in our society," said Vara, almost reverently, "The leader of the Revolution, and the foremost authority on magic in all the Deviant Nations. You'll meet her when we arrive in Greenspectre, as I said. Even if she doesn't have a way of sending you home, I've no doubt she'll be interested in you. It's not every day you meet someone who's able to fool the Vigilant Eyes..."

* * *

Miles away, the relative silence of a palatial bedchamber was broken by the sound of a radio crackling to life. The few occupants of the room scarcely budged from their routines at the noise, for they'd been receiving broadcasts for the last half an hour; so, as the report from Captain Marl echoed across the room, they went on with their business without showing much interest: they maintained the radio connections, they transcribed the reports, they stood guard, and they helped the physician tend to the bedridden patient in the centre of the room.

Then, the final item on Marl's report was voiced: in perfect unison, every single person in the room looked up in shock; and in the bed, almost lost amidst the heavy mantle of blankets, the patient stirred and leaned forward.

"The woman you refer to is dead," she whispered hoarsely.

"_I __**know**__, milady, I know,"_ Marl wheedled._ "But she's practically identical to the description you provided when you last spoke of her, right down to the green skin."_

"Such things can be faked, Captain; creating body doubles is a simple task for any competent mage-surgeon, as my physician here can testify. Of course, it raises questions as to whom this imposter represents: I very much doubt she is in the pay of the Empress – she would consider the surgery heretical..."

"_There's another thing, Milady: when the Vigilant Eyes caught us, they refused to fire on her. In fact, they retreated the moment they saw her. Do you think it means anything?"_

The patient thought for a moment. "I think we may have to examine this witch in person, whoever she really is; as soon as you arrive in Greenspectre, ensure that she is brought to me. Until then, keep an eye on her. If she gets violent, do not hesitate to pull the trigger."

"As you wish, Great Mentor," Captain Marl replied, ending the transmission.

At long last, the patient sank back into the pillows, exhausted. Meanwhile, the physician at her side was still staring contemplatively at the now-inactive radio: "Just for the sake of argument," he murmured softly, "What happens if it really _is_ her?"

"She isn't."

"With due respect, milady, how do you know that? You've insisted that she's dead, but in truth-"

"_Yes she is,"_ the patient snapped. "Elphaba Thropp is dead, and has been for over fifty years. Dead, just like the Wizard, Madam Morrible, Fiyero, and every other poor soul that was taken by the Radiant Empress; even Glinda did not survive those monstrous times. The Land of Oz itself is dead, and we who live have built our kingdoms on its festering corpse. _That_ is the truth, and it is the only truth I have ever needed. In all my decades of study, I've yet to find any magic that could bring her or any of the others back, and I very much doubt I'm about to find it in some girl sculpted to look like Elphaba."

She sighed. "I'm sorry. You'd think I'd have been able to hold my composure, but it still seems as though still I have much to learn."

The physician's gaunt face quirked into a smile: "Like the difference between truth and _metaphorical_ truth, for example?" he suggested, ever-so-slightly mockingly.

In spite of herself, the patient laughed. "You still have hope for those consumed by the Radiance, Doctor. With any luck, it'll withstand the meeting with this claimant to Elphaba's name. If not, we will satisfy ourselves with the execution of the fraud who besmirched the memory of Oz's last hero..."

* * *

A/N: Who is the mysterious Great Mentor, and what has become of Oz? Find out in the next chapters...


	6. All-Too-Eventful Journeys

A/N: Now that we've moved away from explanations and into the actual plot, I'm hoping to present some actual developments in regards to the story and the characters; you'll have to be judge of how well I've done- feel free to review and tell me. One way or another, I've had the time of my life writing this one. Also, feel free to furnish me with your guesses as to how the story's going to turn out; it's this sort of audience participation (plus your viewing and reviewing in general) that gets my corroded little heart started in the morning!

So, without further ado, the latest chapter: read, review, and above all, enjoy!

Disclaimer: Wicked cannot be mine; I do not have a physical cast of thousands at my disposal - only a fictional one.

* * *

"Hello? Is anyone out there? Not to sound rude or anything, but I'd very much appreciate it if someone could get me out from under this thing!"

In hindsight, running headlong into a collapsing building hadn't been one of Fiyero's better ideas, though of course a few niggling doubts had occurred to him as he'd ducked the first hail of falling masonry. At the time, he hadn't thought much of them – the goal saving Elphaba's life was just about the only thing on his mind at that point, and the few concerns he'd had about the danger were quickly gagged by his newly-realized immortality. After all, he didn't have bones to break anymore, and sure enough, most of the rubble that fell on him only glanced harmlessly off his burlap arms and shoulders.

He'd spent perhaps five minutes hunting the ground floor for any sign of Elphaba, all the while dodging falling walls and brickwork; then, almost beside himself with panic and desperation, he'd charged upstairs, shouting her name almost every step of the way in the hope that someone might answer. No sooner had he arrived on the first floor landing when the ceiling had inexplicably tore itself apart and flung itself into the blinding light overhead... and then, he'd felt a gale-force wind dragging him in the same direction. He'd done his best to hang on to the staircase banister as best he could, and for the next few horrendous minutes he'd remained there, helplessly flailing against the pull of the wind as he tried vainly not to imagine his body ripping cleanly in two.

Fortunately, it had been the banister that had given way first. Equally fortunately, his flight through the air and into the light hadn't killed him; in fact, after a brief show of dazzling colours and images playing across the empty air in front of him, he'd landed with a thud in a relatively placid patch of countryside – a forest on one side, a railway on the other (plus one smouldering crater where a building had once stood). True, he didn't recognize any of it, but it was better than nothing.

And perhaps it had been the fact that he was still in one piece, perhaps it had been the visions he'd seen while passing through the light, but he'd been feeling pretty optimistic about things at that point, enough to entertain the thought that Elphaba might be found somewhere nearby. So, once he'd recovered his footing, he'd been setting off in the general direction of the railway...

... when a large section of staircase had dropped out of the sky and flattened him.

As it happened, this was yet another one of those embarrassing "in hindsight" moments: not only had part of the staircase actually landed with him – including the banister he'd been clinging to – but there'd also been several chunks of rubble scattered across the plain around him when he'd arrived. Fiyero had just been too preoccupied to notice them until the next chunk hand landed on top of him. So, pinned under the rubble and unable to move, he could only shout for help and hope that someone would hear him.

Perhaps Elphaba would be the first to find him, assuming she really was nearby (_and assuming she's still alive,_ a cruel voice in the back of his mind whispered). And if not her, then perhaps Boq or the Lion; after all, he'd seen them hurrying after him in his mad dash to reach Kiamo Ko: with any luck, they'd be able to find the light that had brought him here, provided the castle's collapse hadn't buried or destroyed it. Maybe there'd be someone else about to help, if not them. After all, he was lying almost right next to a railway; there might be a train coming along sooner or later, or at the very least, someone interesting in finding out why the sky was raining bits of demolished castle.

Not for the first time since the staircase had landed on him, he tried to lift the massive weight pinning him to the ground, without much success: even if his arms hadn't been made of burlap and straw, he didn't have the strength to budge it. Of course, if he was _really_ desperate, he could just rip himself in two and crawl to freedom until he found someone who could retrieve his legs and sew him together, but he didn't want to try anything extreme until –

Fiyero's train of thought suddenly ground to a halt, as something that sounded uncannily like footsteps rustled across the long grass nearby. "Is someone there?" he called. "I need help!" There was a thoughtful pause, and he added, "Even if you can't lift two tonnes of granite with your bare hands, any assistance would be-"

Two huge hands snaked into view, one wrapping itself around Fiyero's waist, the other lifting the broken staircase with apparently no effort whatsoever. Then, with one smooth motion, the right hand whisked Fiyero out from under the rubble and hoisted him off the ground a split second before the chunk of granite stair thudded back into the dirt. "Oh thank you," he sighed, as his rescuer's face came into view. "For a moment I thought I was in serious trouAAAAAAAARGH!"

The bloodied, skinless face of a woman flayed alive stared back at him, the corners of her mouth slowly twisting into a horrible, tusk-toothed grin, her yellow eyes flashing with delight. "_Ano_**ther** doll?" she giggled, voice shifting wildly from one register to the next. "ANOTHER _sweet_ little d**o**_ll_ to RE_pla_ce THE **one** _she_ took _fr_Om _**me**_?" For perhaps fifteen seconds, the impossible figure held him in one hand, idly poking and prodding him with one of her lower arms as she sniffed his face like a bloodhound scenting a trail; meanwhile, Fiyero remained as still as he could – there wasn't much else he could do under the circumstances, except perhaps for literally ripping himself out of the monster's grip and hoping that he could somehow outrun her without legs. Unfortunately, not only did this not appear to be an option, but the creature's smile was transforming into an enraged scowl.

"_You're_ **one ****of** HERS!" she snarled furiously. "**You're** a _doll_ **alr**EADY, and _one_ BEL**ong**_**ing**_ _to_ someONE ELSE – **the Great and Radiant Lady of Emeralds**!"

Fiyero could only blink in shock. "What?"

"She STEALS **from** _me!_" the monster ranted. "_And_ _**THEN**_ taunts me _with her_ **own** pretty LITTLE **doll!"**

"I'm sorry, but _what?_ I don't belong to anyone, and I'm not a doll; I'm -"

"A badly-_**stuffed**_ AND tatt_ered_ **ragdoll** _but_ a DOLL none_the_**LESS** – no _**nerves**_ _to_ PARAlyse, **no** _fleshbrain_ to sweeten... and YOU _stink_ **of** her _**touch**_! SHE'S been **all** _over_ YOU, _the _green_-skinned __**bitch**__!_ IN BOTH here _and_ **there**, _she_ **replaced so** MUCH of you! YOU _stood_ on **the** _palace guard_ with **porcelain face and golden hands** AND NOW _**you **__**lie **__in__** mud**_ _as_ sackcloth and straw!_"_

Somehow, Fiyero's canvas heart _leaped_, at once in hope and in shock_._ "Hang on a minute," he whispered urgently, almost forgetting the danger he was in. "You've seen Elphaba? Where is she?" The monster's scowl deepened, and for a moment, Fiyero thought he'd finally pushed his luck too far – and that he might be just about to learn how well his new body could cope with being dismembered. Then, a familiar voice yelled "Put him down!"

In all his short time as a Scarecrow, Fiyero had never been happier to see Boq and the Lion. The two of them had clearly acquired an impressive collection of bumps, bruises and dents from following him into the castle and through the light, but they looked ready for a fight all the same. Judging by the angry yapping from just beyond Fiyero's vision, so was Toto.

"Put him down!" Boq repeated.

The monster slowly turned, unearthly yellow eyes surveying the new arrivals. Her expression softened from a scowl to a sneer, and she laughed contemptuously: "_MORE_ dolls **from** someONE _else's_ _**toybox**_," she cackled. "A _tin_ **soldier** AND a stuffed _animal_; and WHO do _you_ **belong** _to?"_

"I don't belong to _anyone!_ And neither does the Lion," Boq added as an afterthought. "Look, would you just put our friend down, or we'll be forced to –"

Without warning, the creature (who'd been sniffing the air for the last couple of seconds) burst out laughing. "_The_ **Mistress of Mirrors!" **she cackled. "_**You**_ _march_ _TO_ **THE** beat of **the Cripple**, _little __**tin soldier**_**! **_She_ **MISSES **_**you **_so much... AND _look_!" She turned to the Lion, clapping all six of her hands in glee. "**The Green Girl** _has_ lost ANOTHER _toy!_ **She** MUST BE _so_ _**sad**_ to be _without_ **her** _DEAR_ **little** **lion cub**._"_

There was an awkward pause, as Boq and the Lion's expressions shifted from anger to confusion, to shock, and finally to horrified disbelief. "What?" the Lion mumbled.

The creature laughed again. "**Maybe** _I'll let_ YOU_ have_ her STRAWMAN _**back**_, **little lost toys**. I'll _be_ sure to _**give**_ the **green girl** _your_ regards WHEN I **see** _her_ _next... _soon." She eyed Fiyero gleefully, and her voice changed dramatically: for perhaps a sentence or so, it reverted to a perfectly ordinary human voice that sounded almost familiar to Fiyero – not to mention hideously incongruous coming from the skinless lips of the monster.

"Perhaps I'll trade you for the doll she keeps with her," she simpered. "Perhaps not. Perhaps sooner or later, she'll have her prickly old straw doll and whimpering lion cub... and I'll have one more sweet little doll to add to my loving family. Either way, **what the Hellion wants, the Hellion takes..."**

And it was at that moment that, with the tension stretched to breaking point, Toto barked angrily.

The Hellion turned sharply in the little dog's direction, her eyes widening in surprise as if she'd only just noticed him. Her head tilted quizzically to the side for a moment, an expression of uncertainty stamped on her bloodsoaked features; to the onlookers, it seemed as though she was just about to lunge forward and grab Toto for another morbid examination. Then, without a word, she hurled Fiyero aside and departed, rocketing away across the plains towards the forest.

For several seconds, the bewildered scarecrow lay in the dirt, staring in amazement at the raw-muscled thing racing away across the land. Eventually, Boq helped him to his feet – unable to disguise the fact that his tin hands were visibly shaking. Fiyero didn't blame him: quite apart from the fact that the Hellion was pretty damn terrifying on her own, it was pretty obvious what the monster had been ranting about when she'd spoken of him "marching to the cripple's beat"; somehow, she'd seen right through the guise of the Tin Man and known secrets that should have been known only to him (not to mention Elphaba and, thanks to the all-too-short interlude in the forest, Fiyero himself). The same went for the Lion, who was now quivering like a leaf: after all, he'd been conned into believing that "The Wicked Witch of the West" was somehow responsible for his cowardice; being accused of being her _toy_ clearly didn't help the Animal's neuroses, that much was sure.

But amidst the fear visible on the Lion's face, there was another one: realization. "That thing said something about the Witch keeping a doll with her," he whispered. "Do you think it was talking about Dorothy?"

Boq took a deep breath he clearly didn't need. "One thing's for sure," he said grimly. "It knows where the Witch is... and right now it's our only way of finding her _or_ Dorothy." And with that, he put his head down and hurtled after the rapidly-disappearing figure of the Hellion, all thoughts of revenge on Elphaba suddenly written clearly on his face. The Lion followed, barely managing to keep pace with the Tin Man's relentless charge; he was an impressive sprinter and he undoubtedly liked Dorothy better than any other member of the group, but even he couldn't compete with the speed and stamina of someone who didn't need to breathe or even rest. Meanwhile, with his flailing limbs and loping gait, Fiyero could only amble after them, delaying himself further to scoop Toto into his arms as he went.

"Well, Toto," he muttered, as he jogged awkwardly after the three distant figures. "It looks like it's just the two of us for the moment. We're always getting left behind, aren't we?"

Toto barked in agreement.

* * *

_They're trying to keep her alive, she realizes._

_Through half-closed eyes and delirium-fogged vision, she sees figures in surgical gowns and masks at work upon her body, trying to bind her wounds, trying stop her from bleeding out, trying to keep her heart beating and having very little in the way of luck or success. And Fiyero's here: he's beyond angry, now – he's in blind panic, trying desperately to stay by her side even as a couple of terrified-looking orderlies attempt to force him out of the operating theatre._

_She tries to tell him that everything's going to be fine, but her voice cannot respond through the haze of pain and sedatives; and in truth, she doesn't want to lie to Fiyero. She's going to die on this table, even as these surgeons fight to keep her alive; she would laugh at the irony, if she could – these doctors, proud Ozians to a man, are fighting to keep_ her_ alive! And if she could, she'd applaud: none of them turned her away; none of them have tried to cut her throat or give her a sedative overdose when Fiyero's back was turned. Perhaps he was a lot more successful at persuasion than she ever was._

_Funnily enough, she has only one regret: that she didn't get to say goodbye to her friends... to Nessa... to Fiyero... to Glinda..._

_Then, just as sorrow begins to blossom, a piercing scream shatters her reverie-_

And Elphaba lurched out of bed, mind reeling in confusion: for perhaps five seconds, she had literally no idea where she was or how she'd gone from the operating theatre to here; then, her memories of the previous day returned in a flood, and she recognized the room around her.

She was onboard an airship – an airship owned by a fanatical group of soldiers who disfigured themselves with magic in order to protest against the laws of the country they had just attacked, a country so far removed from Oz that nobody knew of its existence. Not for the first time, Elphaba wondered if she was still dreaming. She gave herself a little shake and collected her thoughts as best as she could: _alright, I'm on an airship, going to see The Great Mentor in a city called Greenspectre, and I'm hopefully going to find Glinda with her help and then go back to Oz. And a moment ago, I was trying to sleep to make the time pass a little faster. Just one question – why is somebody screaming?_

Glancing blearily to her right, she found Dorothy Gale sitting bolt-upright in the opposite bed, mouth open in a bloodcurdling scream of horror. _Oh sweet Oz,_ she thought furiously, _now I remember: I'm sharing a room with __**her.**_As she absently stifled the urge to reach out and slap the girl across the face, it occurred to Elphaba's sleep-muddled brain that, infuriating gullibility and helplessness aside, Dorothy wasn't the sort of person who'd scream at absolutely anything. Indeed, her gaze was fixed on the porthole in the nearby wall...

And hovering right outside that window, clawing at the glass with bloody, skinless fingers, was the Hellion.

Overhead, there was a loud series of gunshots from the top deck, indicating that the crew of the ship had seen the monster; for her part, the Hellion didn't seem mind being pelted with gunfire – or even notice it. Her gaze was fixed on the tiny, whimpering figure now pressed into the furthest corner of the room, only shifting once or twice as her bloodied claws cut deep into the glass of the window. But it was too thick, even for her.

Elphaba wondered if the Hellion was strong enough to punch through the hull, and if so, wether or not the monster would be willing to risk sending newest "doll" on a death-dive towards the ground three hundred feet below. From what she'd seen of the Hellion's behaviour so far, it was impossible to guess. Thankfully after several tense moments of scratching and scrabbling, the hovering creature finally gave in without any further violence; then, her luminous yellow eyes flickered towards Elphaba, and she snarled something at her. Thanks to the thick glass, the distant rumble of the engine and the gunshots from overhead, it should have been just about impossible to hear her, but somehow Elphaba heard with perfect clarity:

"Give me the girl and I'll give your toys back. Stand in the forest and call my name when you're ready."

With that, the Hellion dropped out of view. Hurrying to the window, Elphaba saw the red-muscled bulk of the creature soaring downwards into the forest below, vanishing into the canopy of trees to the accompaniment of angry swearing and a holler of "CEASE FIRE!" from the Irredeemables on deck. Slowly, the gunfire and the shouts dwindled away, leaving on the gentle purr of the airship's engines... and at long last, Elphaba finally let the go of the breath she'd been holding for the past thirty seconds, and turned away from the porthole.

Unfortunately, she happened to turn in Dorothy's direction, and the girl immediately panicked. "Please don't give me to her," she whimpered, "Please don't give me to her, I didn't mean to steal the Slippers I'm sorry I'm so sorry pleasepleasepl-"

She _almost_ hit her; she'd heard enough of this pathetic whining back at Kiamo Ko, and hearing it again rasped at nerves already stripped raw by the appearance of the Hellion. But at the last moment, her hand slowed in mid-swing and instead clamped down over Dorothy Gale's mouth. The terrified gibbering stopped immediately, but not the girl's terror – if the wide eyes and the chill to the skin was any evidence.

"Shut up," Elphaba hissed. "This situation is bad enough already without having you screeching into my ear every other minute of the day, and I don't intend to lose my hearing while we're stuck in this broom-closet of a cell, so would you _please keep your voice down?!"_

Dorothy nodded. So, Elphaba removed her hand and sat down on her bed – whereupon Dorothy started pleading again, though thankfully more coherently and at a much lower volume this time. "Please," she said, trying and failing to keep the fear out of her voice. "I know you want to give me to her but I promise, if you'll let me, I'll help you get the Ruby Slippers back from her-"

"Oh would you _please_ shut up?"

As Dorothy lapsed into a despairing silence, Elphaba wearily added, "I'm not going to give you to the Hellion, okay? You can stop worrying about that now."

There was a surprised pause, as relief and confusion briefly warred for control of the girl's face. "... Why not?" she asked.

"Because I don't trust the Hellion to deliver on any bargain I'd make with her; I don't know her well enough at this point to trust her with anything, really. For all I know, she might try and kill me the moment I handed you over to her, or steal the Ruby Slippers as soon as my back was turned- the list goes on and on." Somewhere in the back of her head, her conscience flicked an override switch, and she grudgingly added, "Besides, I'm not interested in adding to that lunatic's collection of kidnapped children."

"But you kidnapped _me,"_ Dorothy pointed out. "You were happy keeping _me_ locked up-" she clapped a hand to her mouth, realizing she'd said too much.

Elphaba shrugged. "Well, there are some things I'm not prepared to do: even I have limits..." _Once upon a time, I would have said I was unlimited, _she thought sadly._ It's amazing how times change, isn't it?_

Meanwhile, Dorothy was leaning towards the opposite bunk, as if hoping to somehow emphasize her next point, when she lost her balance and tumbled out of bed with a crash. Wincing, she used the dangling edge of the sheet to haul herself into a sitting position... but not to her feet. "Whatever the Hellion did to me, it hasn't quite worn off yet," she explained. "I can't move my legs – can't even feel them. I-"

Acting on instinct and almost completely unaware of what she was doing, Elphaba reached out and grabbed Dorothy under both arms, hoisting her back onto the bed and arranging her in a sitting position, her legs stretched out across the mattress and her back propped against the wall with a pillow. It wasn't until the girl was comfortable that Elphaba finally noticed what she was doing, and with a fresh thrill of grief, realized that her memory had just played a very cruel trick on her. As far as her mind's eye was concerned, for the last thirty seconds she hadn't been helping Dorothy Gale back into bed: she'd been helping _Nessarose_.

Hastily blinking away angry tears, she turned away before Dorothy could notice the change in her expression. But it seemed that the girl was more interested in worrying than paying any attention to her captor's emotions, or even the reason why she'd been helped in the first place (though it was equally likely that she was just too scared to ask). "What if it never wears off?" she asked nobody in particular. "What if I never walk again? What if..." She bit her lip, her eyes filling with tears.

For the second time in as many minutes, Elphaba's conscience hammered insistently on an override switch. "You heard what Vara said," she reminded her, voice as gentle as she could manage. "If these people have doctors with the magic to change their bodies right down to the bone structure, who says they won't be able to help you walk again? And even if they can't, it's not the end of the world: you still have your health, the use of your arms, and your mind."

"But when I get back to Kansas..." she floundered, clearly trying to avoid thinking of the possibility that she might never see home again. "I mean, we live on a farm! My aunt and uncle can't afford to take care of me if I'm going to be like this forever... and what about my chores? What'll they think if I can't do my chores-"

"Are the farms in Kansas worked only by slave labour? Will you be executed if you can't work?"

"... No."

"Then you're worrying over nothing, child. I doubt very much your aunt and uncle will think any less of you for having to spend the rest of your life in a wheelchair. You're not exactly the first person in history to endure this sort of thing, and you're not the first one I've met either; and more to the point, you've at least got a distinct chance of walking again in the future." _Making you luckier than my sister- __**again.**_

"How do you know all this stuff?"

"What stuff?"

"You know, about how... well, how my life would go, or even how to lift me back onto the bed."

"Implying that I wouldn't know how to help someone into bed already?"

"But you did it without me having to ask; I didn't even have to tell you to straighten my legs out."

_Damn it, she's a lot more observant than she looks._ Out loud, she said, "I've had quite a bit of experience looking after people in your condition; in fact, I think spent half my childhood taking care of one such girl."

"Really? Who?"

Elphaba said nothing: another dose of grief and hatred had just killed whatever potential for almost-friendly conversation remained.

"Come on, please tell me? Who was it you took care of?"

This time, it was a sudden burst of anger that finally coaxed a reply out of Elphaba – coupled with the knowledge that the damnable brat would only keep asking questions if she didn't respond. "My sister Nessarose," she answered at last. "Remember? The one you _killed?"_ she added bitterly.

The look of excited curiosity on Dorothy's face faded, and she bit her lip. "I didn't kill anyone," she said quietly.

"You certainly didn't disagree with being called a hero for it."

"But I didn't kill her! It was an accident!"

"And where was this insistence when the Muchkins were hailing you their saviour? Did you even stop the celebrations to say "but it was an accident?" or were you just having too much fun being danced around the corpse of my sister?"

"I... I just... they said she was-"

"Mad? Evil? _Wicked?_" Elphaba shook her head disgustedly. "Word of advice, child: never take _anything_ in Oz at face value; honesty died in that country when the Wizard took over. And Nessarose wasn't wicked by any stretch of the word, just obsessed with hanging on to what little she had left... but people were already calling her wicked long before she started changing laws – she hadn't sided with me, but she was still close enough to get lumbered with the worst of my reputation. And by the time I found out she'd been left alone, it..." Elphaba once again found herself blinking away tears, and she struggled to keep her voice steady. "... It was too late," she finished quietly. "_I_ was too late. And it happened again too soon; I wasn't there to help her when... when..."

Dorothy was staring at her in amazement. "I-I'm sorry," she stammered. "I didn't know... I didn't even ask-"

"No, and that's just your problem: _you never asked._ You rambled from one end of Oz to the next, eating up every explanation the people happily spoon-fed you and never once questioning anything. And when it came time to actually do something, you scarcely bothered to think for yourself: you just accepted your orders and went marching off into danger, trusting that the Wizard would make things right. You thought your little trip along the Yellow Brick Road was something out of a fairy-tale, didn't you? You thought that if you did as you were told and stayed a good little girl you'd have your own happy little adventure before being sent back home. You didn't even bother to ask if the "Wicked Witch of the East" really deserved to die, or who she was in life, or even if you could trust the Wizard, or _would you stop flinching?_ For Oz's sake, I'm not going to hurt you." She briefly paused for breath. "This isn't a fairytale, Dorothy," she continued. "And if it is, I'll be damned if I can figure out who's meant to be the hero... but I know for a fact it's not me," she added, almost silently.

There was a long and terrible silence, broken only by the sound of footsteps on the decks above them and the gentle rumble of the engine. For ten whole minutes, neither of the two cellmates spoke, or even dared look each other in the face; then, Dorothy whispered, "I _am_ sorry about your sister."

Was it her imagination, or did the girl actually sound sincere when she said those words?

"Not as sorry as I am," said Elphaba quietly.

There was another long and awkward pause. Then, without warning, Dorothy's eyes lit up and, with some difficulty, she turned herself to face Elphaba. "Why didn't anyone in Oz tell me the W... your sister's real name?" she asked, voice alight with curiosity.

"Because they didn't want to see her as a person; they didn't want her to have an identity that didn't match up with the stories they'd been told. They didn't want to see her as the governor's daughter, or the sweet girl in the wheelchair: they wanted to see her as a monster. But the thing is, you treat someone like a monster long enough, sooner or later, they're going to start_ acting_ like a monster."

Dorothy had the decency to look uncomfortable, at least for a minute at the most. Then, she exclaimed, "But I just realized – I don't even know your name: no-one ever told me it."

For a moment, Elphaba honestly considered telling the girl to shut up and leave her alone; but eventually, her temper faded enough to allow logic to take control: maybe it would be better to answer Dorothy's questions – if only because it might assuage the girl's curiosity and get her to shut up of her own accord. So, she tentatively announced, "Before they started calling me The Wicked Witch of the West, my name was Elphaba."

Dorothy blinked. "El-pha-ba," she murmured, rolling the word around in her mouth. "That's a very pretty name."

Elphaba's jaw dropped.

Then, as if the situation couldn't get any more improbable, Dorothy Gale then extended a hand in tentative greeting.

_Damn it, girl, why are you making yourself so difficult to hate?_ Elphaba thought.

Slowly, not entirely sure what she was accomplishing, she returned the handshake.

* * *

"_She's here; she's in a prison hospital – in a critical condition. They say she might not last the night, Glinda." _

_Fiyero's voice is unusually tense, holding none of the light-hearted suavity she'd normally come to expect from her fiancé; still, Glinda tells herself that this is only to be expected under the current circumstances. She focuses on minor details at this point – a coping strategy, one of many she's developed to keep herself from panicking in the face of bad news. As long as she thinks about the little things, she can't be able to concentrate on the fact that Elphaba was..._

_...Was..._

"_You're certain?" she asks._

"_It was __**my**__ squad that captured her, Glinda; I've still got her blood on my uniform!"_

_A few passers-by looked up at the outburst, but they're lost in the crowd almost immediately; they're walking as fast as they can towards the waiting door of a carriage, ready to take them off to Elphaba's deathbed- no, she tells herself; it'll just be her new home for a little while. She won't die. She _can't_ die..._

_The carriage ride is painfully silent: everything that Glinda had wanted to talk to Fiyero about is now frozen by the horrible news, trapped as if in ice. The nervous tension building up doesn't help much; it distends the wait a thousandfold. By the time they finally arrive at the prison, she's certain that they've spent ten years just getting there, and by shocking comparison, the journey through the corridors of the Emerald City Penitentiary seems to take a matter of seconds - even as Fiyero goes about signing the multitude of forms that will permit them to visit the jail's newest and most infamous inmate._

_Escorted by a quartet of armed guards, they are swiftly escorted through a labyrinth of hallways and corridors. As they walk, Glinda can't help but notice that the route they take conveniently avoids any possible contact with the actual inmates; she can tell that they're somewhere nearby, judging by the distant hubbub of conversation from the lunchroom and the occasional blood-curdling expletive from the distant cellblock, but she never sees anything of them. Even the medical wing where Elphaba is being kept has been cleared of inmate patients, leaving it empty except for the few doctors and nurses assigned to look after her – and, of course, the army of guards watching her every move._

"_Just a security precaution, Ma'am," rumbles the lead officer, as he goes about signing them in. "Orders from His Ozness, y'see."_

_Glinda nods, all the while wondering how Elphaba's being treated._

_She doesn't have to wonder long._

_At the very end of the medical wing, behind a thick shroud of sterile white curtains, Elphaba lies unconscious on a bed. Swathed from head to toe in bandages, most of her limbs sheathed in plaster casts, and the rest strung with a bizarre array of wires and tubing, the only uncovered part of her body is her face... and thanks to the innumerable bruises and cuts dotting it, _that_ has been left almost unrecognizable. But at least she's breathing – if only shallowly; Glinda tries to convince herself that she'll recover, that she'll be better soon, and maybe the Wizard will forgive her, and-_

_Suddenly, Elphaba stirs: one badly-swollen eye slowly opens, briefly clenching shut against the bright lights overhead; cracked, blood-encrusted lips part, and a hoarse voice whispers, "Glinda?"_

_Heart thundering, Glinda leans closer towards the bedside. "I'm here Elphaba," she reassures her. "I'm right here."_

"_I... I..." Elphaba struggles to finish her next sentence, but Glinda can't tell if it's because her jaw is too badly-bruised to produce sounds properly, or if she just can't bring herself to speak. But eventually, she finally manages to gasp out the words, "I... couldn't ... make them... listen..."_

_And then she starts to choke, to wheeze, her only free hand clutching at her throat; she's trying to breathe, but she can't. And suddenly, the bandages around her waist turn a deep crimson. Glinda screams for a doctor, but they're moving so slowly and Elphaba is dying-_

Glinda's eyes snapped open, and she took in a deep shuddering breath as the real world finally became apparent to her.

She was still sitting in the passenger compartment of the train, leaning against the window and comfortably lost amidst the cushioned red seat. All around her, various elegantly-dressed men and women went about their affairs: most of them were as fast asleep as she'd been a moment or two ago, but others were chatting quietly amongst themselves, reading, working, or helping themselves to the beverages trolley as it trundled along the aisle. Outside, the landscape blurred smoothly past them, the afternoon sun now illuminating the farmland of this strange countryside: here and there, she could see farmhouses, plantations, wide green fields and roaming livestock. Things had changed since Glinda had dozed off: hours ago, most of what she'd seen of Unbridled Radiance had been wild and almost uninhabited except for the few heavily-fortified border towns – settlements often under threat from "those damn abominations and Irredeemables" and constantly under scrutiny for any signs of "Distortion" (whatever that was) according to the other passengers.

Speaking of which, some of the people sitting nearby had noticed Glinda's awakening, and turned to her in apparent concern. "Are you alright, Miss?" said the man sitting directly opposite.

"I'm fine," she mumbled sleepily. "How much further are we from Exemplar?"

"Oh, probably only a couple more hours at the most; the crew say we'll be making a pit-stop in the next town – checking the engines, picking up a few extra passengers, stuff like that. Nothing much to worry about."

"And, um, when we get to Exemplar... would you happen to know where I could make inquirifications into missing persons?"

The man gave her an odd look. "That depends entirely on how serious the matter is, I suppose: if it's just a simple disappearance, I'd take it up with regional security administration; if you think that this person's suffered some kind of Distortion, broken one of the Radiant Laws, or been kidnapped by known Deviants-"

"She has," Glinda whispered urgently. "Last I saw of her, she was being captured by the raiding party that attacked the train when we last stopped."

"Then you'll have to report the problem to the Imperial Centre for Vigilance, I'm afraid." His expression brightened. "I can show you the way to their offices, mind you. Then again, just about anyone here could."

From what little Glinda could gather, the train's passengers consisted of some of Unbridled Radiance's highest-ranking ambassadors and their staff, all of them on their way back from a conference in one of the "unaligned nations" that had apparently showed signs of succumbing to Distortion and Deviancy. Oddly enough, the ambassadors were nowhere to be found in Glinda's carriage; the passengers here were all functionaries and bureaucrats, well-dressed and well-paid but nowhere near the level of one of the Empress's personal emissaries. Glinda shook her head in disbelief: somehow, this plush, luxurious carriage was supposed to be _the second-class_ compartment. In Oz, it would have easily been the first – maybe even decadent enough to pass for a dignitary's private car.

And that was another thing she'd have to inquirify about when they finally reached this capital city: the peculariaties of this strange land. Who was the Empress, apart from the country's ruler? What were the Vigilant Eyes? What were the "Deviant Nations?" What was Distortion? And why had the raiding party attacked (and possibly kidnapped) Elphaba? Normally, she'd have been happy enough to just ask the people next to her, but there was something about the people here that smothered any questions she intended to ask: maybe it was the suspicious expressions that crept across their faces whenever she asked too many questions; maybe it was the fanatical whispers of loyalty to the Empress, the almost-religious reverence with which they praised her; or maybe it was the verbal hatred they professed to traitors and rebels. One way or another, she didn't feel safe asking any of them.

Meanwhile, the train was slowly grinding to a halt: it seemed they'd finally arrived at the country town for their pit-stop; from what Glinda could see from the platform, the settlement looked like any of the numerous country towns she'd ended up stopping at during her journey from home to Shiz: small, quaint, and with a very obvious fetish for red bricks. There was even a small clocktower visible in the distance.

There weren't too many people waiting on the platform: other than the stationmaster and a small gaggle of boiler-suited technicians hurrying towards the stopping train, the only commuters were a couple of uniformed men standing as far away from the edge of the platform as possible. Grim-faced and serious-looking, they were visibly restraining an already-handcuffed figure between them, ensuring that he didn't make a run for the train when its doors finally opened. Obviously, they had a very strong grip, for the prisoner clearly couldn't escape their grasp even as the doors finally clanked open and the technicians went to work.

Suddenly, a hush fell over the carriage, and all eyes turned towards the passageway leading into the second carriage. Standing in the doorway was one of the most astonishingly handsome men Glinda had ever seen: tall, slender, his dark hair elegantly slicked back and his eyes a luminous sapphire-blue, his high cheekbones and smooth skin framing an expression of smiling, unsinkable confidence; for good measure, he was dressed in a tailored suit that looked as if it cost more than the entire train put together. Acknowledging the other passengers with a respectful nod, he strode gracefully down the aisle towards the driver's compartment without a word or second glance, seemingly oblivious to the looks of naked adoration that were being directed at him.

"Who was that?" Glinda asked, as the apparition disappeared amidst the ranks of bowing technicians.

The man sitting next to her checked to make sure that nobody in the driver's compartment could hear them, before replying: "That was one of the ambassadors. Lord Hayfelt, I think his name was."

"He doesn't look like most ambassadors I've met."

"Of course not: he's one of the Purified."

"The who?"

"The Purified!" the man whispered reverently. "They're the greatest and most accomplished men and women in all of Unbridled Radiance: they've been selected by the Empress herself to be cleansed of all Deviant tendencies and any potential for Distortion, and given new forms that match the greatness they displayed while still among the lowly."

"Oh. How does-"

From somewhere outside the train, there was a deafening crash. Glinda turned to the window just in time to see a number of heavily-armed figures scurrying down the embankment and onto the platform from a freshly-blasted hole in the perimeter fence. Immediately, the technicians still working at the train scattered, all of them diving for cover; but it seemed that the attackers weren't interested in the train or any of its passengers and crew, for all eight of them made a beeline for the serious-looking men and their prisoner at the opposite end of the station.

"Deviants," some of the passengers muttered amongst themselves. "Rebels; maybe not loyal to the Deviant Nations, but certainly disloyal to the Empress."

"Give him back!" one of the attackers was shouting. "I won't see my son executed for something he didn't do!"

"He is not to be executed," said one of the uniformed men, now struggling to keep the prisoner restrained. His voice was cold and businesslike – almost toneless except for the slightest hint of menace attached. "You know as well as I do that the potential for redemption within all of us, sir: your son's crimes are not serious, and his accomplishments are well known; once his interrogation is complete, he will be Purified-"

"And sent back to us as one of those... _things!"_ shouted another one of the rebels. "You might as well kill him right now!"

"Treason to the Empress; not unexpected in a town such as this, but disappointing nonetheless... but redemption is within your reach. Surrender now, and you will all be granted amnesty; as for you, Mr Luddestone, your own accomplishments are sufficient enough to be rewarded with Purifi-"

The man's next words were lost in a hail of bullets, the rebels opening fire on the guard before he could even finish his sentence. The other swiftly drew a firearm from his belt, but the other rebels were quicker on the draw; the moment he hit the ground, the prisoner ran to join the others, and for the next few seconds, the entire group was clustered around him, asking him if he was alright, if he'd been hurt, or if they'd started the procedure. And for a moment, the relief was so palpable that some of them smiled...

And then a voice from above intoned, "Please lower your weapons and submit to the Judgement of the Empress; we do not wish to harm you."

Twenty feet above the station, suspended in mid-air by gods-only-knew-what, were three finely-crafted ivory spheres. To Glinda, they looked more like escaped mantelpiece decorations than anything else, at least judging by the elaborate silver carvings of angelic faces and outstretched wings on their flanks; the only thing that spoiled this impression was that, at the centre of each sphere was fitted a tiny glass lens, turning like an eye to follow the movements of the people.

"Remain calm," said one of the spheres; in startling comparison to the voice of the arresting officer, it sounded almost pleasant, if oddly mechanical. "Redemption is within reach: surrender and the Empress shall grant you amnesty."

"To hell with that!" shouted one of the rebels; as one, all eight of them opened fire on the hovering spheres, and once again the afternoon quiet was shattered by the crash and rattle of military-grade firearms. Some of them chose to shower the enemy with a rain of bullets from heavy, belt-fed, rapid-firing guns, while others took careful aim with long-barrelled rifles and carbines; a few even hurled what looked like improvised grenades.

But the spheres didn't fall, or even budge; the bullets simply ricocheted harmlessly off their casing – if they didn't miss altogether. Meanwhile, the rebel leader (Mr Luddestone, presumably) stopped firing long enough to turn to the newly-rescued prisoner; "Run, Walter," he shouted. "Don't bother looking back, just run."

And so he did, charging off towards the hole the rebels had left in the fence.

Then, the spheres finally retaliated: one turned in the direction of the fleeing prisoner, and spat a thick jet of greenish mist towards him from a nozzle in its side. The cloud enveloped him almost instantly before Walter could take another step, and as Glinda watched, he froze in mid-run and toppled back down the embankment in a paralysed heap. At the same time, the lenses of the other two spheres glowed an ominous red, before sending a solid beam of light lancing out towards the rebels below.

Fire rippled across the platform and enveloped all but two of the rebels; for the next few agonizing seconds, the men and women of the group, now ablaze from head to toe, could only stagger vaguely in the direction of the spheres and try vainly to fire guns that were swiftly turning to molten slag in their hands. The spheres, for their part, ignored them: they were too busy incinerating the two survivors.

Glinda wanted to look away, to close her eyes and pretend she was somewhere else and that she couldn't smell people being burned alive or hear the screams of the dying. But she couldn't look away: the sight of it had paralysed her almost as thoroughly as Walter had been; this was the first time she'd seen murder committed in front of her, and the intensity of it had frozen her in her seat. Worse still, the other passengers didn't seem all that disturbed by this turn of events; in fact, quite a few of them were _applauding._ They even cheered when the last rebel (now little more than a charred carcass) collapsed to the ground; Glinda wanted to protest this, to get to her feet and demand to know what the hell was wrong with all of them... but she couldn't. Shock – combined with so many years of experience in hiding her personal reservations – was still keeping her pinned to her seat.

"What did I tell you?" one of the passengers said triumphantly. "_Nothing_ escapes the Vigilant Eyes; praise the Empress for their protection!"

Eventually, the fires were extinguished, the bodies were removed, and the re-arrested Walter was unceremoniously hauled away... and at long last, the train's doors clanked shut and the engine rumbled to life again.

But as the train finally left the station and sped off down the tracks, the ambassador finally emerged from the driver's compartment... and stopped right in front of Glinda. Instantly, the man next to her got to his feet and bowed low, frantically gesturing at Glinda to do the same, which she awkwardly managed.

"Greetings," the ambassador announced; his voice was gentle, almost mellifluous in tone – exactly the kind of voice you'd expect a diplomat to have. "Most pleased to make your acquaintance, Miss...?"

"Glinda, my lord," she replied hurriedly. "Glinda Upland." _No theatrics, no gossip,_ she told herself. _Don't say anything that might set him off. This isn't the time to get people suspicious._

The luminous blue eyes twinkled charmingly. "And I am Lord Paxton Hayfelt, ambassador of our Empress and our land of Unbridled Radiance. The engineer has informed me that you are from another country – a recent victim of the Hellion's disruptive activities, if I recall correctly."

"Yes, my lord. I'm originally from the Land of Oz."

"Really? The Hellion must be drawing in its victims from far beyond our nation's reach, for I have never heard of such a place. Sad that you have fallen victim to that Distorted monster's depravity." And here, Glinda couldn't help but notice that, despite talking of things that most people would have said disgustedly or angrily, Hayfelt's voice didn't change as he spoke; nor did the smile ever leave his face.

And now that he was actually within arm's reach, Glinda noticed something else: when she'd seen him earlier, she'd noticed that his skin was pale and smooth, giving him a look a aristocratic perfection and elegance. Now that she looked closer, she saw that the ambassador's skin was even smoother than she'd first thought: there were no wrinkles, no laugh-lines, no hints of stubble, no nicks or cuts, not even the slightest pimple; if anything, the man's skin looked more like porcelain than anything real. And while the effect was undeniably beautiful, Glinda couldn't help but feel a little bit unnerved by the flawlessness of it all.

"And they say a friend of yours was captured by the raiding party back at the border?" he politely inquired.

"That's right, my Lord; her name is Elphaba."

The ambassador's eyes swept Glinda up and down, and she had the uncanny feeling that somewhere deep within the man, a mask had briefly slipped and now something else entirely was peering out at her from behind those glowing, sky-blue irises, examining and all but dissecting her with its gaze. And even if she was wrong, the more she looked at those eyes, the eerier they seemed – more like doll's eyes than anything else, just painted ball-bearings set in a sculpted face.

"I am certain that the fine men and women of Our Empress's Vigilance will be able to help you find her again, my lady. In fact, I may be able to aid in your search: my carriage has a direct communications link with Exemplar; I may be able to help you lodge an inquiry right now if you wish."

Glinda could tell that something was very wrong: quite apart from the fact that she'd just watched eight people getting burned alive as her fellow passengers cheered, something about Hayfelt's offer didn't feel right at all. Even if all unearthliness she'd sensed about the man's face was just her imagination, it still didn't seem such a good idea to leave herself alone with someone complicit in those executions... but at the same time, it didn't seem such a good idea to refuse him, either.

So, smiling and nodding, she followed him out of the carriage to awed stares from the other passengers, all the while trying to tell herself that everything was going to be okay.

As expected, the Ambassadorial quarters were much more opulent than the carriage she'd just left: there were none of the seats you'd normally find in a train carriage, just an ocean of silken cushions, feathered mattresses and sofas; a dizzying haze of sweet perfume hung in the air, fogging the chamber almost as thickly as the velvet curtains. All around the room, the ambassadors lounged in various states of relaxation: even at a glance, it was clear to Glinda that all of them were of the Purified. And all of them were beautiful, too: the men were just as handsome and debonair as Hayfelt, right down to the tailored suits that somehow never wrinkled or crumpled, no matter how long the wearer had been lounging; the women were gorgeous, their bodies slender and full-bosomed, their faces sculpted and flawless, their clothing unimaginably rich – even Glinda felt inadequate, and more than a little envious. Once again, the only thing amiss was the smoothness of the skins, and the unchanging smiles they wore.

A servant offered her a glass of some dark, oily-looking liqueur as she entered; Glinda took it - but didn't drink. After the last of Morrible's tirades, Glinda was painfully aware of how shockingly naive and even outright stupid she could be... but for all that, even she could recognize the warning signs this place was showing off. So, she just held onto the glass (hoping to find a potted plant she could empty it into), and sat down beside Hayfelt as he went about tinkering with some arcane-looking brass gadget. It took about five minutes to ready, and all the while, Glinda was struggling not to get too relaxed even as she sank deeper into the cushions.

Eventually, after pressing a few keys and listening to the garbled response from the speaker, he instructed her to speak Elphaba's name into the microphone of the device.

"There," he said, once she'd done so. "They'll check their files for anyone answering to that name; I'm sure we'll find her soon."

_Good,_ she thought. _I can make my excuses and leave, now._

She stood, a little unsteady after becoming so accustomed to the luxury of the silk pillows; she opened her mouth to thank the ambassadors for all their help, but all that emerged was a drowsy yawn. Blinking rapidly to clear her blurring eyes, she tried to walk towards the exit, but her legs wouldn't respond; she could only wobble, back and forth, her limbs growing heavier and clumsier with every passing second.

What was happening? She hadn't drunken anything here, or eaten anything for that matter. How had they drugged her?

Painfully slowly, she turned to the door, hoping that the sight of her escape route might galvanize her limbs. But not only was the door shut, but the servant standing beside it now wore a gas mask.

_Orange blossom,_ Glinda thought, woozily. _I thought the perfume smelled of orange blossom._

She fell, sinking back down into the cushions as darkness poured in on her vision from all sides.

And the last thing she heard, before she lost consciousness altogether, was Ambassador Hayfelt's voice, purring, "The Empress would like a word with you, my dear..."

* * *

A/N: Who is the Empress? What awaits Elphaba and Dorothy in Greenspectre, and who is the Great Mentor? And will Fiyero, Boq and the Lion catch up with them? All detailed in the next chapters, ladies and gents!


	7. Radiance and Revelation

A/N: Yay! My first 14000-word chapter! Well, ladies and gentlemen, this one's been simulteneously a lot of work and a lot of fun to produce; I'm hoping that I can continue to startle and surprise you (in a good way), and with any luck this latest chapter will provide plenty of twists and turns to keep you entertained - and hopefully keep the plot churning, but you'll have to be the judge of that. Be warned: lots of dream sequences this chapter, and that means lots and lots of itallic font segments.

Before we begin, I'd like to thank all my reviewers, favouriters and followers for their kind support. Please feel free to review and furnish me with your thoughts, opinions, critiques and guesses as to what might happen next.

Nami Swann, I'm glad that you find Hellion as scary and disturbing as I'd intended her to be, and I'm also glad you noticed the atmosphere of wrongness about the land of Unbridled Radiance. As for the "Poor Glinda" aspect... well, without saying too much, this is going to be another "poor Glinda" chapter. Please forgive me.

Ms Helfire, I'm glad you like the story and its characters so far. As for reviews and attention, I'm just happy that I've got a review count that outnumbers my chapter count at the moment; it's a weird thing to be happy about, I admit, but having a little recognition is better than none at all. I hope you enjoy this latest chapter, and thank you once again.

So, without further ado, let's begin: read, review and above all, enjoy!

* * *

After shaking hands with the Witch, Dorothy had spent the next half an hour trying to make as little noise as possible; she could tell that she'd seriously annoyed her during their last conversation, and given that the Witch looked as though she was in the mood to kill somebody at the best of times, Dorothy wasn't in the mood to provoke her any further.

Of course, that wasn't her only reason for keeping quiet: she had a lot to think about in the meantime – for instance, where they were going, why they were going there, and what would happen when they finally got there; who the "Irredeemables" really were and if they were safe people to be around... and of course, the question that was currently turning Dorothy's stomach into knotted rope: would she ever walk again? The Witch (Elphaba, she reminded herself) had said that she might recover; she'd also said that the "mage-surgeons" who'd made the Irredeemables might be able to fix her, but was it really such a good idea to leave herself at the mercy of doctors who regularly made people into... _monsters?_

And another thing, why was Elphaba trying to make her feel better in the first place? Why was she being so... nice? True, she'd lost her temper a couple of minutes later, but the Witch had gone to the trouble of saying that she _wasn't_ going to hurt her, and she'd stayed true to her word so far: at any point in the last hour, she could have very easily killed her – either with magic or with her bare hands. She'd even made some worryingly accurate points in her last rant, the one about Dorothy not asking questions about Oz being the most cutting. She'd even admitted her real name, one so pleasant-sounding that Dorothy honestly didn't know what to make of it – or _her. _In fact, what was Dorothy supposed to make of anything she'd been told?

And then there was the talk of the Witch's dead sister, Nessarose – and Elphaba's insistence that she'd never really been wicked; how much of it was truth, and how much of it was lies? So many questions and no answers in sight, it made her head hurt just trying to sift through the mess. Eventually, she gave up on thinking about the questions for the time being: she certainly didn't have any answers, and she doubted that asking the Witch for advice would be such a good idea.

So she listened to the sounds of the ship around her instead: the distant rumble of the engines, the whistling of the wind just outside the porthole, the footsteps on the decks overhead – and a sudden yell of "YES! _YES!_ WE ARE SODDING VICTORIOUS!" Not too far away, there was an answering roar of approval from the crew, followed by a loud bang of champagne bottles being uncorked.

"I wonder what _they're _celebrating," Elphaba muttered to nobody in particular. Ever since their last little chat had ground to a halt, she'd been very quietly reading; as it happened, the battered rucksack that she'd stowed by her bed had apparently contained quite a few books, one of which had been the massive leather-bound thing that she'd been leafing through for the last few minutes, guided by the soft glow of a hovering ball of light. Given that Dorothy couldn't move from the bed, she could only catch a brief glimpses or two of what the Witch was actually reading –yellowed pages and weird, complicated looking symbols – before she was forced to use her imagination to fill in the gaps. It was almost certainly a spellbook, of course, but what was Elphaba looking through it for? Was it something that was going to be used on _her?_ Was it something she planned to use on the Irredeemables? Or was she just trying to pass the time?

There was a distant fluttering from the corridor, and one of the flying monkeys abruptly swooped into the room, hooting joyfully as it barrelled into Elphaba. "Holy hell, Chistery," she gasped. "Why so excited?"

"He's enjoying the festivities, just like the rest of us," said a voice from the door. It was Vara, the woman that Elphaba had been chatting with on the way to the airship, a conversation that Dorothy had been too busy worrying to pay much attention to. But now that she had a better view of her, Dorothy realized how unusual she really was: before, she'd seen the blue scales running across Vara's face but she hadn't how many of them she wore, and what they looked like up close; each one was about the size of a bottle-cap, rough and thick like the skin of an alligator, and coloured a haunting shade of blue. Startlingly, apart from the scales that decorated her forehead, cheeks, chin, neck and arms, the woman looked quite normal: straight dark hair, green eyes, a pleasant smile, and (under the scales) smooth, tanned skin. Looking at her, Dorothy could only imagine what had driven the woman to have herself remade like this - or any of the other Irredeemables, for that matter.

She was so taken aback by the contrast that she almost completely failed to notice that Vara was now wearing a bright red party hat, and holding a large plate of pastries and cakes. "I thought you might like some of the party food," she said.

Dorothy opened her mouth to politely refuse the offer – after all, she didn't yet trust the Irredeemables, and for all she knew, the food might just be poisoned. But then the scent of intermingled chocolate, peppermint, raspberry and cinnamon hit her like a runaway train, and her stomach noisily reminded her that she'd missed lunch. In the end, what finally emerged from her mouth was a bemused mumble of "thanks very much," as she helped herself to a piece of caramel slice.

Elphaba, meanwhile, was far more level-headed. "What's the occasion?" she asked, cautiously.

"We've just received word from the other raiding parties making their way back from U.R.; it's been a sweeping success, all in all."

"How's that? I mean, in the case of this group of raiders, it hasn't been all that successful; no offence, but you only blew up one building, stole nothing, killed no-one and the only hostages you've taken are us... and we're not really hostages."

Vara raised her eyebrows. "What makes you think we had to do any of that? What makes you think any of the other raiding parties had to do anything except make as much of a rumpus as possible?"

There was a pause, as Elphaba visibly considered this. "Ah," she said quietly. "You were a distraction. Fair enough. Question is, what were you trying to distract the enemy_ from?"_

"A military base about thirty miles to the north of where we met you: from what the returning strike team's reported, they've pretty much wiped it off the face of the map. With that gone, the enemy won't be sending any further airships over the border for the time being-"

"Giving you time to plan the next move," the Witch finished. "I'm familiar with the tactic. I'm surprised you're telling _us_ anything about it, though."

"You're not exactly spy material, not by U.R.'s standards anyway."

"And if we were?"

Vara shrugged. "Not as if you can do anything about it from here. And besides, it's just one move... the latest move in a very, very, _very_ long war."

Something in the scaled woman's voice piqued Dorothy's curiosity. "How long has it been going for?" she asked.

Vara gave her an odd little smile. "Let me put it this way: my parents were still kids when it started. When they left the country for the Deviant Nations, they were just teenagers." She sighed. "Yeah, they were among the first refugees to leave U.R.; believe it or not, that was how they first met – in the exact same cart that was taking them out of the war zone. Not exactly love at first sight material, if you take my meaning: bombs going off in the distance, the streets wet with blood, the air stinking of dead bodies and fresh sh-"

Elphaba coughed loudly.

"Oh, right. Sorry, I've gotten a bit casual about that sort of thing. But yeah, the war's been going on for a long time... I think about forty years at the least. In the beginning, there were actually pitched battles, day-to-day artillery barrages, airstrikes, wizards and witches flinging magic at each other. That went on for about ten years before the Deviants united their armies and fleets under one banner and settled just out of U.R's reach. Ever since then, the fighting's been pretty on-and-off; there've been border attacks, skirmishes, and even the occasional air raid, but it's been rare that anyone's been able to make it past the border defences of either side. No-Man's Land makes it even trickier."

"No-Man's Land?" Dorothy echoed. "The captain said something about that before, but-"

"It's where the worst of the fighting took place in the early years of the war, basically a desert full of crashed airships and mass graves that nobody in their right mind would cross on foot. All those magical duels and bombardment didn't help much either: it's said to be infested with monsters created from spells gone wrong; I've even heard tell that the Hellion lives somewhere out there." Vara paused for effect, and then announced. "Incidentally, we're actually travelling eastwards over No-Man's Land right now."

Dorothy, having suddenly lost her appetite, carefully put the raspberry tart she'd been considering back on the plate.

"Oh don't look so gloomy, we're perfectly safe up here. In fact, airships are the only safe way to cross No-Man's Land these days – not that it's stopped U.R. from sending ground troops through it."

"So... we're above it _now?"_

"That's right."

"Can we take a look-"

"I can see where this is going," said Elphaba, slamming her book shut and getting to her feet. "Arms out," she instructed briskly. Dorothy, who was almost used to the idea of being carried around by the Wicked Witch of the West by now, obediently stretched out her arms she could be lifted from the bed and over to the porthole. Thankfully, though the window was barely large enough for anyone to see the _sky_ through from the bunks, once she was being held right next to it, Dorothy found herself with an extraordinary view of the landscape beneath the ship.

Hundred feet below them, the forest had given way to a long, barren stretch of plain, dotted with craters and split by deep canyons and fissures. There didn't seem to be any trees or grass growing down there except for the odd skeletal husk of a dead tree here and there; and while she couldn't see any of the ground troops that the "enemy" had apparently been sending over the border, there were signs that people had been here – very briefly. From one end of the wasteland to the next, the ground was littered with the broken hulks of crashed airships: wooden ones like old sailing ships, most splintered to pieces by their final crash-landings; metal ones with no signs that they'd ever been aloft by balloons, now warped and rusted by years of neglect; and there were some that looked so elaborate that Dorothy couldn't even guess at how they'd been able to fly – platforms surrounded by dozens of huge brass rings, hollow glass balls large enough for a human being to sit inside, long dart-shaped ships with bird-like wings sprouting from their flanks, and one that looked like a series of cheap carpets sewn together. In any case, all of them were wrecked, rings twisted out of shape, glass shattered, wings broken and skeletal, carpets tattered and torn... and many of them were surrounded by the withered shapes of their long-dead crews. Monstrous though the sight was, Dorothy could only stare in morbid fascination and take in all the grisly details.

One thing that caught her eye was the many ragged flags hanging from the masts of the ruined ships: there were many different designs used, but the two most common were those that Vara helpfully identified as those of modern Unbridled Radiance and the Deviant Nations. U.R.'s flag was white, marked with a smiling mask-like face hanging above a golden sceptre – "Their sign of beauty's supremacy," Vara scoffed – while the flag of the Deviant Nations was pitch-black, depicting a huge red hand crushing the golden mask of Unbridled Radiance in its clenched fist.

"No need to be told what _that_ means," said Elphaba sarcastically. "While we're on the subject of wars, has nobody tried to sue for peace in the last four decades?"

"Oh, both sides try to make some kind of settlement every five years or so_..._ but the peace treaties usually depend on one side accepting the other's beliefs: we want to live without the Radiant Laws; they want us to adopt the Radiant Laws, have our leaders submit to Purification, and have us Irredeemables burned alive."

Elphaba sighed. "I didn't think there'd be much success. After what happened back in Oz, that's pretty much the norm for the battles I've gotten myself involved in..."

Dorothy twisted around in Elphaba's arms. "The Wizard didn't give you the chance to make peace?" she asked. She wouldn't have been surprised to hear that the Witch had refused that kind of offer, but to hear that the offer had never been made... well, it just didn't sound like the Wizard. Why wouldn't he give her the chance to surrender?

But Elphaba shook her head. "He offered it... once. In private. And I doubt he told anyone outside his inner circle of what happened, either, or even what he'd give me in return."

"Why? What _did_ happen? What was he going to give you?"

"Rehabilitation."

"What?"

"He offered me the chance to join his government and be introduced to the people of Oz as his Grand Vizier, freshly-rehabilitated and turned good. He said I deserved it after proving my worth so many times over... he said I could be wonderful, _just like he was."_ She took a deep breath, allowing Dorothy to briefly ponder the sarcastic edge to her voice. "But," she continued, "the bargain depended on me overlooking everything he'd done."

"What do you mean?"

The Witch's face briefly twitched with anger, and for a moment, Dorothy thought she was going to yell at her. But instead, she only whispered, "Did never wonder _why_ I fought the Wizard in the first place?"

In spite of herself, Dorothy actually found the courage to respond: "I know," she said, "I _know:_ I didn't ask any questions about Oz, and I'm sorry... it's just that-"

"What's_ that?"_

Halfway through the apology, Elphaba's eyes been absently wandering off in the direction of the porthole, and she'd obviously seen something interesting out there, for without warning she all but lunged in its direction, banging Dorothy's elbow painfully against the wall.

"Ow!"

"Sorry. But just look at that over there – you'll know what I'm talking about when you see it..."

Dorothy scanned the horizon outside the window, looking for anything that might have caught the irritable Witch's attention; for perhaps five seconds, she only saw more of the vast wasteland that she'd seen before, with its deep canyons and endless airship wrecks. Then, she saw it: lying alone in the middle of a huge crater, the badly-corroded stern of an airship lay half-buried in the dirt. Though most of the colour had been stripped from what was left of its hull by wind and rain, there were still a few stubborn patches of green paint here and there. But it was the flag hanging from the crooked mast that drew her attention: tattered and faded though it was, there was no mistaking the emerald-green flag of Oz and its distinctive Z-Inside-The-O emblem.

"Now just how the hell did _that_ get here?" Elphaba demanded of nobody in particular.

"What of it?" Vara asked, shrugging. "Do you recognize the flag or something?"

"Well, yes," said Dorothy. "But how would it have gotten here? I thought you said this battle was just between you and U.R. – you didn't say anything about Oz getting involved." (Was it her imagination, or did an approving smile show itself on the Witch's face?)

"I don't know; I never even heard of Oz before I met you two. Maybe the ship got here by following No-Man's Land up from the south; there's always a little bit of foreign airship traffic coming up from the countries beyond the reach of U.R. or the Deviant Nations – perhaps there's a route back to Oz there. Or maybe the ship was brought here by whatever brought the pair of you here. Who knows?"

"I don't think it's as simple as that," Elphaba murmured. "I mean, Oz doesn't _have_ airships: the nearest thing we have to an airship like the one we're travelling in is a hot-air balloon. I think if the Wizard's government had developed an airship, I'd have noticed at some point. More to the point, that thing's been here for years..." She paused, briefly lost in thought. "I'm going to have to have a word with the captain about this."

"Go right ahead; he's in the mood for a chat – festivities do that to leaders."

"Speaking of which..." Elphaba suddenly reached for the plate of party food and helped herself to a slice of chocolate cake. "Sorry," she mumbled between mouthfuls, "Conundrums make me hungry."

Dorothy almost laughed; it was so unlike everything she'd seen of the Witch up until now that she only _just_ managed to hide her smile behind her hand. But as Elphaba turned towards the brig door to continue the chat with Vara (inadvertently taking Dorothy with her), she caught a corner-of-the-eye glimpse of something on the landscape through the porthole, and craned her neck to look.

Not too far from the rusted husk of the Ozian airship, a small house squatted. Its windows had long since been shattered, and the doors hung off their hinges at drunken angles; the roof was full of holes and the timbers of its walls looked as though they'd fallen victim to a fire or two.

But despite all those signs of disrepair, Dorothy knew without a shadow of a doubt that, somehow, her own house had ended up among the wreckage of the war.

* * *

_Once the near-fatal coughing fit subsides and Elphaba recovers, it's revealed that someone had actually tried to poison her. To Glinda's relief, the damage done is middling at best; equally reassuring is the fact that this incident convinces the security chief to post more guards – this time _inside_ the ward._ _He assures her that all six of them are obedient enough not to ignore the Wizard's orders, and will not make any attempts at assassinating the prisoner– or hinder the doctors' efforts to keep her condition from worsening._

_Then, the doctors inform them that the patient (spoken in the same tone you'd say "prisoner") can no longer accept visitors on the grounds of unconsciousness. So, she and Fiyero are unceremoniously ejected from the building and sent back to their respective workplaces – her fiancé to the barracks, Glinda to the palace. She spends most of the trip back worrying about every possible thing that could go wrong: what if there really is another assassination attempt? What if the Wizard orders Elphaba's execution? What if the doctors can't heal the aftereffects of the beating she suffered? What if she _dies?

_The small army of reporters waiting for her at the palace gates only make things worse: they've got their own questions to ask of her, from the relatively benign "What is the Witch's current condition, Your Goodness?" to the gut-churning "Will the Wizard be demanding capital punishment for the Witch?" Even the few of Glinda's admirers that have followed her coach this far end up asking similar questions, but they voice their queries in a much more passionate tone of voice – and replace "The Witch" with "that fucking whore." For her part, Glinda offers her usual dazzling smile, shakes her head, and insists that she has no comment on the issue and an official statement will be released later today when the Wizard has had time to consideratify the issue... the special words, carefully rehearsed for occasions where Morrible hasn't given her a speech and doesn't want her running her mouth, now repeated over and over and _over _again. By the time the gate finally clangs shut behind her, Glinda's repeated those words no less than eighteen times (to reporter and bystander alike); her neck aches from shaking her head, and her face is beginning to hurt, too. And as she climbs the stairs to the relative privacy of her bedchamber, she realizes that she's never had so much trouble keeping a smile on her face before._

_Once the door is shut behind her, once she's managed to sooth her racing heartbeat, she tries to work. Sitting down in front of her mirror, she massages her face, reads and re-reads the script she's been given for next week's festivities, and _tries _to look like her usual self as she rehearses. But she can't: now that she's hidden from the eyes of the public, she can't keep the anxiety off her face, so her crowd-pleasing smile now looks pained and desperate, and the voice that once sounded bubbly and pleasant little more than a panicked whimper. She doesn't even look like herself: she's pale, sweaty, her immaculate curls beginning to slide into disarray, her hands shaking and twitching and _oh Oz,_ there's blood on her hands! It must have been from when Elphaba was having the fit... Did any of the reporters notice?_

_She hastily showers, washing off as much of the blood, the sweat and the smell of well-matured anxiety off her as she can. But Glinda knows that it's not going to be enough: as soon as she's dressed, she does the only thing she can possibly do to assuage the nervousness. She pays a visit to Madam Morrible's quarters and (after knocking for about five whole minutes) asks her if it's possible to make inquiries as to Elphaba's sentence._

_Morrible is a little testy at the interruption, to say the least. "My dear," she announces, somehow managing to make "my dear" sound like a declaration of war, "You told those reporters that the Wizard will be releasing a statement later today, _and he will_; you will know when the rest of the Emerald City knows."_

"_But Madam, this is something I _need_ to know; I need to know what's going to happen to her– it's important."_

"_So is the issue of _deciding_ Miss Elphaba's sentence. There are many issues to consideratify, my dear: current political climate, potential negative reactions to lenient sentencing, the severitifity of her crimes, the aggravatications she presented to the government, the chances of her being successfully rehabilitated, possibility of escape attempts, possibility of assassination attempts, possibility of her surviving her first night of recovery – the list goes on and on."_

Oh Oz, not more questions,_ Glinda thought. Out loud, she begged, "_Please,_ Madam Morrible; she's my friend – at least let me know if she's going to be executed or not."_

_The press-secretary's nostrils flare in annoyance. "Miss Glinda, need I remind you that despite your current friendships, you are still a member of His Ozness's government and expected to abide by the Wizard's decisions regarding statements to the public?"_

"_Madam, please!" Glinda almost screams the last word._

_Morrible throws up her hands in exasperation. "Oh very well... but this information is to remain confidentual; do you understand? Good. Your friend will not be facing execution. She'll remain incarcerated until such time as the Wizard can adequately decide what to do with her – which could take months, so don't hold your breath. And _yes,_ before you ask, you still have visiting rights... once she's actually stable enough to accept visitors."_

_Thanking Morrible profusely, she hurries back to her room, feeling pathetically relieved - if not actually happy. But it doesn't show in the mirror, in spite of all the reassurances; she barely succeeds in mustering something akin to her usual smile at dinnertime, and she barely touches her food anyway. Worse still, sleep is almost impossible that evening: she can't stop herself from imagining that lonely prison hospital, dark and empty but for the sleeping figure of Elphaba... and the assassin creeping up on her._

_Next morning, she finds no letters from the doctors informing her of her friend's, and no newspapers joyously proclaiming the death of the Wicked Witch. And, as the day drags on, she hears no sounds of celebration and now whoops of "She's Dead!" no matter how far she strains her senses. By dusk, she's almost completely assured herself that Elphaba is safe for the time being. So far, so good: now she just has to keep up this panicky little routine until she's allowed to actually _see_ her again._

_It takes almost a fortnight until a letter arrives, informing Glinda that the patient/prisoner is now well enough to converse with visitors. So, she clears her schedule for the morning and heads straight for the prison. However, it seems as though somebody's already had the same idea:_

_Nessarose is sitting by the gate, eyes wet with tears and a fresh bruise blossoming on her cheek; the manservant pushing her wheelchair isn't much better, now sporting a black eye and a bloody nose. Apparently, the two of them had arrived in the Emerald City for the sole purpose of visiting Elphaba, only to end up being refused entry by the guards. When they'd protested, the guards had simply roughed them up and flung them out the doors. "Criminal conspiracy!" she hissed, tone swinging wildly between anger, grief and physical pain. "That's what they accused me of! They said I was trying to organize an escape attempt; I told them I'd brought all the necessary paperwork with me– I even showed them the papers, for Oz's sake – and they tore them up! They said they were fakes, said that'd be exactly the sort of thing that the W-Wicked Witch of the East would do!"_

_Glinda suddenly feels... odd. It's not because she feels sorry for Nessa – that's nothing new; no, this sensation is nothing like the grey cloud of pity usually hanging over her head when the misfortunes of Elphaba's sister become noticeable. If anything, this feels more like ice forming in the pit of her stomach. It's not until she finds herself storming up to the nearest guard that she realizes what the sensation is: anger. And not the usual, petty irritation directed at delayed magazine subscriptions, cosmetic foul-ups, fashion disasters and all the other little annoyances she encounters from time to time. This is the purest, most undiluted dose of rage she's ever felt in her life._

"_I'm sorry, Miss Glinda, but the Wicked Witch of the East cannot-"_

"_Her name is Nessarose Thropp," Glinda hisses, voice sounding unnaturally cold even to her. "She's not a witch, she hasn't committified any crimes against the Wizard, and she's not going to help the prisoner escape. She just wants to see her sister. Is that so hard to understand?"_

_A look of infuriating condescension crosses the guard's face. "Your Goodness, perhaps you've never encountered true wickedness before. In my experience, it runs in families, you see; I'm sure his Ozness will understand what happened here-"_

"_And I'm sure that the newspapers will understand what happened too," she snarls. "They're not going to hear anything about wickedness, magic or escape attempts; what they're going to hear about is the fact that one of you __**punched a wheelchair-bound girl in the face."**_

_The guard has the decency to look embarrassed. "Sometimes, punishing wickedness isn't enough, you understand - we have to sometimes prevent wickedness from ever-"_

"_By hitting crippled girls in the face? Keep talking: the Herald will want to hear this, and they'll probably want your name too." Glinda takes a deep breath. "Nessa and I are going to be paying a visit to someone today: it can either be the prisoner, or it can be the editor of the Herald, and once they get a good look at that bruise your story will be all over the city. If you're in luck, you'll be fired; if not, you'll be spending the next five years as inmate at this very prison. Do I make myself clear?"_

_There's a pause, as the guard hastily prepares a ramp for Nessa's wheelchair; Nessarose herself tearfully thanks Glinda (as does her manservant, for some reason), but she barely hears any of it: she's too busy wondering what the hell she'd been doing for the last few minutes. She's never done anything like this before in her entire life: blackmail, threats, use of her own media connections, even the wellspring of rage she'd tapped into – where had any of those ideas sprung from? What the hell had she been thinking? She takes an even deeper breath: it's clear that she's out of sorts, probably a result of stress from this entire imprisonment/hospitalization debacle. She can only assure herself that everything's going to be fine; once she's certain that Elphaba's safe and well, she can go back to being Glinda the Good, smiling and bubbly and never angry in the slightest._

_Once they're escorted past the ranks of gun-toting security guards and into the hospital, though, Glinda realises that it may not be as simple as that..._

_The doctors inform them that Elphaba's condition has improved considerably, thanks in part to the radical use of magic in treating her injuries. However, it'll still be quite a while before she'll be allowed outside the hospital, or walk, or even eat without assistance; she's also on regular dosages of sedatives to ease her pain, along with stronger doses in order to help her sleep (_and to keep her from getting violent,_ Glinda speculates). On top of that, she's under constant observations of a small _horde_ of doctors, surgeons, anaesthetists, experimental pharmacologists, physical therapists, experts in healing magic, thaumaturgical theorists, security consultants and guards. And of course, the nurses: checking her temperature, changing her bandages, feeding her, cleaning her, emptying the bedpan, and assisting her with every other little thing the patient is no longer capable of accomplishing on her own. To their credit and (Glinda's considerable relief), they don't seem inclined to see Elphaba as a monster or treat her with any kind of hatred: the Wizard obviously spared no expense in finding consummate professionals for his prize prisoner's recovery._

_It happens that Elphaba is awake, but still bedridden and barely capable of movement: the broken bones of her legs and arm are healing, but very slowly; and while she can actually move her jaw now, her emerald-green face is still mottled with livid purple bruises and dotted with surgical scars. Oddly enough, the thing Glinda finds most upsetting is the fact that she's been stripped of her familiar black cloak, dress and hat; lying in bed and dressed in plain white hospital scrubs, she seems inexplicably... diminished._

_She accepts the gentlest of hugs from both Glinda and Nessarose, she smiles awkwardly through the pain in her limbs and face, she comments on how wonderful it is to see them again. But Glinda can tell that there's something horribly wrong with Elphaba, something beyond the shattered limbs and battered skin: it's as if all the righteous anger and fire that had once animated her has been extinguished; the sarcasm is gone from her voice, as is the familiar acerbic wit and prickly temper; even the expressions on her face lack the old vitality. And in the place of that glorious energy, all that's left is... weariness. Exhaustion. And, just beneath the unconvincing laughter, sorrow._

I couldn't make them listen,_ she'd said._

_She keeps up the half-hearted facade of happiness right up until Nessarose briefly leaves to ask a few questions of the doctors; as soon as she's certain that her sister's out of earshot, Elphaba starts to cry. Slowly at first, just a few tears - like the first raindrops that precede a hurricane; then, agonized sobbing, deep shuddering breaths and floods of tears. She tries to speak, to explain herself, but all that emerges are incoherent sobs and whimpers. At first, Glinda can only stare in disbelief: in all the years she's known her, she's never once seen her cry. Then, she remembers her compassion, and gently holds Elphaba in her arms until the weeping subsides._

_Once she's calm enough to speak clearly, Elphaba finally explains: "I failed," she says quietly. "I couldn't make them listen; I tried to tell the people about what the Wizard was doing, who he really was, what was happening to the Animals... but they wouldn't listen. I couldn't make them believe. I couldn't fight him, either. I couldn't save the Animals, not when it really counted... I couldn't even avoid a simple ambush..." Her voice threatens to dissolve into sobs again, but Glinda sooths her as best she can, stroking her back until her breathing returns to normal._

"_It's going to be okay, Elphie," she tells her. "Everything's going to be okay. I'll be here for you. No matter what happens, I'll be here for you..."_

* * *

Glinda's eyes fluttered open, the comforting warmth of the dream evaporating around her as she woke.

Immediately, she noticed two rather disturbing things: firstly, there was a rank, acid taste in her mouth; secondly, she was now looking out at the world through a pair of eyeholes barely large enough to see through, leaving the rest of her vision shrouded in darkness. Yawning wearily, she reached out to remove whatever was covering her face...

Only to find that her arms refused to budge; the same went for her legs.

In fact, the only part of her body that she could move even slightly was her head. Baffled and more than a little concerned, she peered down into the darkness that surrounded her, trying to get a good look at what was keeping her body motionless; after several seconds of fruitless gazing, she saw what looked like handcuffs clamped around her wrists and ankles. And then, as her eyes adjusted to the dark and sleep-induced numbness finally left her body altogether, she suddenly realized that this wasn't the only thing wrong with her: along with the restraints keeping her limbs in place, her body was now fitted with dozens upon dozens of wires, tubes, and catheters; it was almost impossible to tell what they were for, but given that quite a few trailed under her dress and up her legs, Glinda wasn't entirely certain that she wanted to know. For good measure, there was a respirator mask fastened over her face.

Horror-struck, she looked back up through the eye-holes, hoping to find some clue as to where she was and what had happened to her: after several panicked glances from left to right, it turned out she was leaning against the wall of a long, stainless-steel corridor; there was no sign of any furniture or decorations, except for the row of eight oddly-shaped containers stacked against the opposite wall. But it wasn't until she noticed that room appeared to be gently rocking from side to side that she realized that she was on-board a train. No, _still_ on-board a train...

The memories of earlier that day flooded back: arriving in "Unbridled Radiance," boarding the train, being separated from Elphaba, seeing the Vigilant Eyes in action... and meeting the ambassador. She'd been drugged, hadn't she? Yes, she'd been told that the Empress wanted to speak with her. Did that mean that _this_ was where they were keeping her until then?

Her eyes absently flitted back to the containers leaning against the wall in front of her. All eight of them were identical: perhaps six feet tall and three feet wide, made from a gleaming combination of brass and chrome, they looked almost like coffins – except that the lids had been sculpted to resemble human faces. Looking closely at the nearest of those androgynous faces, Glinda realized that under the eerily serene expressions, each one had eyes made of clear glass... _just like the eye-holes that she herself peered through._

She was imprisoned within one of those coffins.

On some distant level, Glinda knew that the most rational thing to do under the circumstances was to stay calm and figure out a way of escaping – and, if that wasn't possible, wait until she was released. After all, she still had the oxygen mask over her face, so she didn't have to worry about suffocating. Unfortunately, Glinda's rationality had been shoved into the very back of her mind from the moment she'd realized that she was trapped in the coffin, allowing her claustrophobia to take control; in that moment, the only thought running through her head was _"I've been buried alive, I've been buried alive, I've been buried alive, I've been buried alive, I've been buried alive..."_

"HELP!" she wailed, voice muffled by the respirator. "HELP! SOMEONE HELP! PLEASE! GET ME OUT OF HERE!" She struggled vainly to move, to undo her restraints, to knock her coffin over, to get someone to hear her – all in vain. "HELP ME!" she screamed desperately.

For the next minute, she screamed and cried and hollered, until her voice finally gave out and she slumped back in her coffin, both her energy and her panic exhausted. And then, just as she was beginning to despair, a tinny little voice said _"Psst!"_

"What?"

"_I think I've got #5 here – were you screaming?"_

Glinda floundered for a moment. "Y-yes," she stammered pathetically. "Yes, that was me screaming. Can you get me out of here?"

"_No such luck,"_ said the voice. _"I'm in the sarcophagus next to you, #5."_

"But how are you talking to me? How can I hear your voice in here?"

"_These sarcophagi are fitted with microphones and speakers, just in case these "Purified" bigwigs want to hold a conversation with us during the trip. I've been fiddling about with the wires inside this thing for a while – almost electrocuted myself while I was about it – but I've managed to hijack the speaker inside your sarcophagus and transmit my voice."_

"Well that's very nice of you, whoever you are... but why am I here? I mean, I know why the ambassador drugged me, but why's he keeping me in _here?_ Is there something wrong with just putting me in handcuffs or something?"

"_You've obviously made quite an impression on him. These things are reserved for only the most valuable or dangerous of prisoners, ones they can't afford to give even the slightest chance of escape. Even selected candidates for Purification aren't usually given this kind of treatment."_

"Oh, _wonderful!_ That's very reassuring!_"_

"_Just stay calm. You're safe enough for the time being. Plus, you're not going to be made into one of those smug bastards who put you in there; that gives you some time and leeway to figure out an escape attempt once they let you out."_

"But... it's... I can't... I... I..." She was on the verge of hyperventilating again; the darkness was crushing down on her, the eyeholes of the sarcophagus shrinking and the light dimming and and and-

"_Look, try thinking of something else, okay? Tell me your name; tell me about yourself."_

Glinda swallowed hard, balling her fists as she tried as hard as she could to steady her breathing. "I-I-I-I... my name's Glinda Upland," she gasped out; she meant to stop there, but something in her brain latched onto the words as the only logical way of keeping herself from going completely mad, and she started repeating herself – slowly at first, but as the walls of the coffin started pressing down on her once more, she found herself speaking faster and faster until the words themselves dissolved into incoherent gibberish. "My name's Glinda Upland. My name's Glinda Upland. My name's Glinda Upland, my name's Glinda Upland, my name's Glinda Upland my name's Glinda Upland my Name's Glinda Upland myname'sGlindaUplandmyname'sGlindaUpland-"

"_Yes, you've made that abundantly clear. My name's Omber Landless. Just try to breathe normally: in, out; in, out. Remember, you're safe, and there's a chance for you to escape. Keep talking to me, nice and slowly- __**ohshit!**__"_

From somewhere just out of Glinda's sight, the sound a door loudly swinging open had echoed. A moment later, Ambassador Hayfelt strolled into view; nothing about him had changed since their last conversation – least of all his smile, which now gleamed under the stark overhead lights of the carriage.

"And how are we faring this evening, my honoured guests?" he asked, addressing the ranks of sarcophagi as if they could respond. "I hope you're enjoying the trip so far. Alas, we won't be disembarking in Exemplar for another three hours – so many miles of countryside and town to travel – so we'll be able to savour each other's company for a little longer..." He chuckled, a disconcertingly pleasant sound to Glinda's fear-crazed mind. "My friends," he purred. "My poor, unenlightened, imperfect friends; I do so wish your journey ended with Purification. You would know the bliss that I feel, and understand the Empress' sacred mission... but it was not to be. Oh well, your fates do not all end in death, and I will petition the Empress to grant you the Purification you secretly long for – once your purposes in the capital are fulfilled, of course. Until then, dream of beauty and perfection, and know that it could very well be your destiny..."

He glanced in the direction of Glinda's sarcophagus, and his eyes briefly scanned her up and down just as they had when they'd first met. Deep inside the container, Glinda squirmed uneasily; being on the end of that piercing stare felt disorienting, and not just because she'd only just managed to steady her breath, either: it was as if there was actually something hypnotic about his eyes that made her feel dazed and light-headed. The feeling of inadequacy she'd felt around the Purified women grew, the feeling that she didn't deserve to stand in the ambassador's presence almost eclipsing all rational thought; and with it came another feeling – a desperate sense of loneliness and sorrow. For the briefest of moments, she felt like begging the ambassador to allow her to stay with him, to _be_ like him, that she'd do anything he wanted just for the chance to linger in his presence for a minute or two and dream of being as perfect as him... and then, Glinda blinked and suddenly the spell (or whatever had just happened) was broke: alarmed and more than a little disgusted at the direction her thoughts had been moving, she looked away from the eyeholes and stared resolutely at the floor, hoping that she wouldn't have to meet that gaze again.

"Why, Glinda, you're awake!" exclaimed Hayfelt. "The sedatives must have worn off. Well, we can't have you tired and unpresentable before the Empress..." He strode over to the side of her sarcophagus, knelt down, and from just out of Glinda's sight, there came the sound of buttons being pushed and dials turned. Then, there was a hiss from the respirator, and a strong smell of orange blossom flooded her nostrils.

As her vision faded, Glinda cast one last bleary glance at the world visible through the eyeholes... and saw Hayfelt gently caressing the face of her sarcophagus. "Sleep well, my dear," he whispered. "Pleasant dreams..."

* * *

_For the next five months, Glinda spends as much time as possible visiting Elphaba._

_It takes at least eight solid hours of negotiations to convince Morrible and the Wizard to allow her this much, though; the Wizard isn't certain what the public will make of their resident media darling associating with the recently-arrested terrorist, and Morrible clearly doesn't trust Glinda – not after she found out about the blackmailing attempt on the guard. But even the curmudgeonly press secretary admits that the public might just applaud the visits if they were posed as a formal attempt by both the Wizard and Glinda to reform and rehabilitate the Wicked Witch of the West._

_So, all-day visits are arranged for at least twice a week: on these days, Glinda shows up at the prison at nine in the morning, helps Elphaba with breakfast (at least until she recovers the use of her other arm), spends mid-morning to mid-day talking and reading with her, helps her with lunch, encourages her as the physical therapist puts her through the daily exercises, helps her with dinner, and then departs – ready to repeat the routine in another four days._

_Needless to say, it doesn't take long for these visits to become the highlight of Glinda's week: after being cut off from Elphaba for so many long months, she now has a chance to make up for all the lost time and all the missed conversations; indeed, half the time spent on her visits is spent chatting about what the two of them did during their long separation – though the story's of Elphaba's time as the Wicked Witch of the West are much more interesting, of course. And it's during these times, when she tells her stories of swooping out of the sky to rescue captive animals, of launching bolts of searing flame into barracks and guardhouses, of writing her name in the sky in pitch-black smoke, of the sheer joy of _flight_, that Elphaba sounds the most like her old self. _

_When they're not talking, they're reading books – either borrowed from the prison library or delivered as presents from the extremely rare well-wisher. Of course, thanks to the cast over Elphaba's left hand and the jittery medication-induced twitch in her right, it's very difficult to her to hold a book _or_ turn its pages; so, Glinda reads aloud to her. And astonishingly enough, she actually enjoys it; with the help of her best friend, Glinda finds herself enjoying books for the first time in her entire life – an experience infinitely sweetened by the proud smile she occasionally sees Elphaba wearing._

_And then, there's the exercises: because the prison exercise yard isn't considered suitable for "the recuperating prisoner's" health – and because it's simply too much of a hassle to keep the other prisoners from interfering with her – Elphaba's physical therapy takes place in the expansive gardens that border the admissions building. Every day, after lunch, she and a therapist spend two hours rebuilding her muscles and testing the strength of her bones, gradually moving towards the day that she can leave her wheelchair, and then move without the aid of a cane. It's on one of these sessions that Glinda decides to invite Nessarose along: it works better than even _she_ expected; Nessa helps her sister get used to being confined to a wheelchair, encouraging her to move under her own steam, even challenging her to the occasional race around the garden. Seeing the two of them speeding along the paths at high speed, giggling like children and dodging the restraining arms of the therapist, Glinda rejoices: Elphaba is healing._

_But for all these tantalizing signs that she's on the mend, it's clear she hasn't truly_ _recovered entirely: occasionally, Glinda arrives to find Elphaba hastily wiping tears from her eyes; at times, she'll stop talking in mid-sentence, looking as though she's just remembered something horrible, and once she's recovered her voice she'll shudder and change the subject; and then there are long stretches of silence when her depression seems to take on a life of its own, and she can't even bring herself to speak. Once, the wheelchair race leaves Glinda behind, and when she finally catches up with them, she finds Elphaba crying onto Nessa's shoulder. "I could fly once," she was mumbling. "And I thought nobody could bring me down..." _

_And then there's the disappearance of Elphaba's old sarcasm and irascibility: once upon a time, she'd have an insult ready for the nurse who'd stared at her for too long, or a harsh word for the orderly who mishandled her. Now, she barely even reacts. The side-effects of being moved from one kind of medication to the next doesn't help, especially during those awful periods when she's forced to go cold turkey and endure the withdrawal symptoms – some of which are so bad that she's left half-paralysed in bed, twitching, sweating and sobbing in agony, Glinda holding her hand for every searing minute of her recovery._

_It's torturous to watch this sort of thing play out, but play out it does... as the weeks turn into months, the bruises slowly vanish, the scars fade, and Elphaba graduates from a wheelchair to a set of crutches._

_As such, Glinda is almost relieved when Madam Morrible arrives with the details of Elphaba's sentence; if nothing else, it might just give her the incentive to fly off the handle like the good old days. The meeting takes place out in the garden, with Elphaba sitting peaceably under a chestnut tree, Glinda seated beside her... and Morrible towering in front of them, blotting out the sun._

"_And just what the hell are _you _doing here?" Elphaba grumbles (and Glinda mentally punches the air). "Have you run out of backsides to kiss, or something?"_

"_I am here on behalf of the Wizard," Morrible fumes back. "He has decided to extend to you a most generous offer of clemencifity."_

"_No surprises that the cowardly old fart wouldn't deliver the offer in person."_

"_Do you want to hear this offer or not, Miss Elphaba? I very much doubt another will be forthcoming."_

_Elphaba scowls, but remains silent – much to Glinda's relief; as much as she likes to see the familiar prickly rebelliousness in action, she doesn't want to see Elphaba jailed for the rest of her life, or in front of a firing squad for that matter._

"_Good. In the past, you've made no secret of desiring a very specific boon from the Wizard –"_

* * *

A sudden tremor in the world around her shocked Glinda back into wakefulness; she heard shouting in the distance, and the sound of equipment being unloaded. Someone was movingher – no, somebody had _dropped _her.

"Careful with those damn things! They're being sent to the Empress."

Slowly, her sarcophagus was tilted upright, and the scent of orange blossoms once again flooded her nostrils...

* * *

_They're alone, now. Morrible has given Elphaba some time to decide on whether or not she'll accept the Wizard's offer; she even went out of her way to say that she'd need time to consider all the possibilities at stake... which is such a patently nonsensical remark that even Glinda notices it: there are only _two_ options to be found; either Elphaba can agree to the bargain, take the chance of achieving the one thing she's always wanted in life, and be accepted into the Wizard's government; or, she can refuse and spend the rest of her life in the solitary confinement cell of a maximum security prison._

_And that's assuming that they don't just kill her and make it look like an accident before she gets within fifty yards of the place, so maybe there _are_ more options._

_But whatever the case, Glinda knows that this is one point in her friend's life when flying off the handle isn't an option: Elphaba needs to agree to the bargain. True, it'll mean that she'll have to betray her principles and work for the enemy; yes, the guilt and shame she'll suffer as a result will be horrific; and admittedly, Morrible did mention the distinct chance of her dying on the operating table. But the only alternative is a life sentence spent alone and in darkness. And more to the point, this offer will grant Elphaba everything she always wished for: she'll be given authority, respect, the love of the people, the means of putting her talents to good use, a chance of living an almost-normal life... and the opportunity for her and Glinda to work together, just like they'd always wanted._

_There, in the shade of the chestnut tree, Elphaba looks uncertain for the first time in her life. "She's got to be lying," she whispers, clearly trying to convince herself more than anyone else. "There's no way she could possibly deliver on what she's offering. She said herself that she was only able to use a few spells of the Grimmerie-"_

"_But what if she's telling the truth, Elphie?"_

"_So what if she is? It doesn't mean anything, not while..." The fire in her eyes gutters and fades a little. "While _he_ carries on destroying the lives of Animals all over Oz," she continues, visibly trying to hold on to her anger. "How can they ask me to work for him after everything he's done? Do they think they can bribe me into being his obedient lapdog? Do they think they'll have me parroting out every stupid, vacuous little statement he wants voiced?"_

"_It doesn't have to be like that," Glinda wheedles. "You can still fight for Animal Rights; I mean, you've seen how much effort he's putting into this bargain, he wants you to be on your side – maybe enough to accept a few concessiations to the deal. And even if he doesn't allow that, once you're part of his government you'll have the influence to make things the way you wanted, but the inside: you can countermand orders, you can delay orders for brainwashings or executions, you can persuade officials, you can even petition the Wizard himself. Accepting the bargain doesn't mean you'll have to give up _everything, _Elphie. Just _some_ things."_

_Elphaba gives her a look of mingled admiration and depression. "Is it just me, or have you actually been learning something useful for once in your life?"_

_In spite of herself, Glinda smiles; a compliment _and _a dose of the old sarcasm! Maybe Elphaba can recover after all. "Well," she giggles, "it had to happen sooner or later." She refrains from mentioning that the political savvy she's just displayed has only been learned since Elphaba was recaptured, in preparation for the day when Glinda might have to use some political knowledge to help her; prior to then, she was the same bubble-headed party girl with no opinions, no skills and no influence – _and no worth, either, _she thought bitterly._

_Meanwhile, Elphaba looks thoughtful... but she's clearly not convinced just yet. "Assuming the operation _does_ work," she sighed. "Do you really think this is the right thing to do?"_

"_Absolutely," says Glinda automatically._

_Once again, that look of admiring pride and self-conscious misery._

"_You heard what Morrible said: if you turn this down, they'll lock you up and throw away the key; you'll die in prison, and we'll never see each other again. This is the only way you can get what you wanted. And It's the only way we can be together," she adds, before she can stop herself._

_If she noticed that slip of the tongue, Elphaba doesn't comment on it. "She's wrong," she said at last. "Even if the procedure works as planned, it won't make the people love or respect me; you can't change public opinion that easily, no matter what that wrinkled old egomaniac thinks. As far as they're concerned, I'll still be the Wicked Witch of the West no matter how much I change."_

_Glinda winces: this is not the time for Elphaba to recover her old self and fly off the handle. She needs to keep her from getting too cynical about the agreement. "It won't be that way, Elphie: the point of the whole procedure is making sure you change in a way that they can accept."_

"_And what change is acceptable to the good people of Oz?" Elphaba snarls._

"_Well, once the procedure's complete, you won't be wicked anymore!"_

_There's a horrible pause, as Glinda suddenly realizes that she's just said the worst thing she could have possibly said under the circumstances: all traces of defiance are gone from Elphie's face; now, more than anything else, she looks crushed and defeated. "I won't be wicked anymore," she echoes. There's a tremor in her voice, as if she's on the verge of tears. "Implying that I _was?" _She takes a deep, shuddering breath. "Did you believe the rumours all along? Did you really think I was wicked?"_

_Glinda's stomach plunges to the heels of her shoes; suddenly, she can see the entire history of Elphaba's life sentence playing out before her eyes: the refusal of the bargain, the trial, the public humiliation, the transportation, the shaved head, the manacles, the cell, the darkness, the beatings, the long years in a tiny lightless room at the bottom of a converted mineshaft, the attempted suicides, the abuse by the guards, the slow descent into madness, and all because Glinda had opened her mouth too wide. She flings her arms around Elphaba, frantically pleading, "No, I didn't mean it like that; I'm so sorry, I just meant that you wouldn't be wicked to _them_-"_

"_It's okay," says Elphaba; the hurt is still raw in her voice, but at least she doesn't sound as if she's about to cry. "I understand. As long as I'm like this, they can't see me anything other than an unnatural monster, as Wickedness incarnate." She sighs. "And this is the only chance I'll get to change it. Very well then: you win. I'll accept the offer."_

_She stands, clearly about to follow Morrible's path back towards the warden's office, but turns back at the last minute: "You're pretty much the only person in the Wizard's government I can trust at this point, Glinda: if this is the only way we can be together, then I don't want us separated ever again. From here on, we're friends. We don't ignore one another, we don't abuse each other, we don't abandon one another, and we don't betray each other. If I promise you that much, can you promise the same?"_

"_Without hesitation," says Glinda solemnly._

I owe her that much, _she thinks. _No more betrayals, no more cowardice; from here on, we work together.

_But as she leads Elphaba inside, she can't help but wonder if – in persuading her to accept the bargain - she hasn't betrayed her already..._

* * *

Light flooded Glinda's vision.

Someone had opened her sarcophagus, letting some dazzling white light from overhead blaze into her eyes; they'd also removed her respirator mask, which probably explained why she was awake. And she could breathe, now: she could finally breathe easily; the sense of being buried alive was gone, hopefully for good. She would have thanked her rescuer, but she was so groggy from the after-effects of the orange-blossom gas and her claustrophobia that she could barely move, let alone speak. So, she just stood in the open sarcophagus, enjoying the fresh air and wondering what the hell was going to happen next.

As she pondered this, the restraints holding her in place were swiftly undone, at long last freeing her arms and legs; but thanks to the last few hours of imprisonment, she was so numb that the moment the final clamp around her left arm was released, she immediately fell bonelessly forward out of the sarcophagus. Fortunately, someone had already prepared a stretcher, allowing her a fairly comfortable landing.

For what felt like centuries, she lay there in an exhausted heap; all around her, the blurry figures of technicians were disconnecting her from the tubes and wires that had kept her safe and monitored while inside the sarcophagus, and meticulously cleaning her body as they went. But Glinda could only stare blearily up at the light and think about the dreams she'd had while entombed within her sarcophagus. Occasionally, she would mumble aloud something, hoping that thing would start to make sense if she asked – until one of the technicians held a drinking straw to her mouth and she absently realized just how thirsty she actually was.

At some point, the stretcher started moving – she could tell because the lights overhead began to change position. With both her vision and sense of time perception shot to hell, it was impossible to guess how long this journey took or even where she was going. But eventually, she was gently hoisted out of the stretcher and into a chair. Then, as the indistinct figures of the technical crew began retreating from her sight, she felt a sharp pain in her arm; one of them had given her an injection.

Eventually, she felt the sense of weariness and disorientation trickling away, and realized that she was sitting in the otherwise deserted interior of... well, it looked like a glass-walled monorail. For some reason, she was the only passenger in the entire vehicle – and hers was the only chair, too. Outside the monorail, the shadow-streaked walls of an underground platform were about the only thing in sight... except for a tiny pool of light, at the centre of which Ambassador Hayfelt stood.

"You're very lucky, my dear," he announced calmly. "The other prisoners are being transported to the prison complex to await interrogation; you, on the other hand, are being sent directly to the Empress. And she's even arranged a very special transport to the palace just for you – and a glimpse of the oldest and proudest city of her mighty empire. Exemplar welcomes you, my dear..."

Then, the monorail started to move along the track. For perhaps twenty seconds, Glinda was out of the chair and trying to find a way of getting the door open; then, once it became clear that there'd been no way of even chipping the reinforced glass without the aid of her wand (which hadn't been seen since she was first captured) she sat down and watched the walls of the tunnel slowly dwindled until the monorail was aboveground, trundling through the night, along an elevated track through...

... through...

When she'd first seen the Emerald City, Glinda had known for a fact that it was the largest, grandest, most glitteringly magnificent city she'd ever laid eyes upon. And though she was more inclined to look upon the thoughts of her younger self as naive and often stupid, there was no denying the sheer size and grandeur of the Wizard's shining metropolis - with its dazzling green walls, the towering buildings, and the many hundreds of thousands that composed the populace.

Exemplar somehow outdid it.

From the moment the monorail emerged from the tunnel, it had been surrounded on all sides by colossal towers hundreds of stories tall, at once elegant and monolithic in their design, each one a single needle-sharp finger pointing toward the night sky. For the first time in years, Glinda felt dwarfed by the scale of a city around her, a feeling that only grew when she looked down and saw the vast canyon of roads hundreds of feet below her, thronged with people going about their night-time business. But most astonishingly of all was the very reason she could see any of this in the first place: the entire city was composed of some gleaming-white stone that shone like a beacon even in the half-light of the dusk; every single building, road, pathway and monument glowed an enticing white from the foundations to the highest spire, flooding the city with so much light it seemed as though the sun had never set. And this, in turn, allowed Glinda to see the many dozens of shapes that filed across the sky above her: ships suspended in the air by huge balloons, floating above the skyline and ferrying Oz-only-knew what across the city; human-sized metal darts that zipped madly out from the city hub towards the horizon as if they'd been shot from the barrel of a gun; and most commonly of all, the huge billboards hovering miles above the ground. They weren't advertising anything, though: they were there as lessons. "BEWARE DEVIATION!" they proclaimed, silhouetted figures above the slogans displaying horrific features – crab claws, tentacles and slug-tails in place of feet. "BEWARE DISTORTION! TRUST IN OUR EMPRESS AND CLEANSE SUCH MONSTERS FROM OUR MIDST!" In other billboards, the familiar smooth skin and unending smiles of the Purified were on display, promising the bliss of perfection to those deserving of it. Less often, there'd be an image of the empress, a tall, radiant figure shrouded in glowing white robes, her hands outstretched as if to embrace the new arrivals. And last but certainly not least, there was the one lone billboard hovering above the gates of the city and any thoroughfares for new arrivals: "WELCOME TO EXEMPLAR," it proclaimed, "THE TRUEST CHILD OF UNBRIDLED RADIANCE."

Eventually, the monorail's destination appeared before them: the tallest building in the entire city, it consisted of three monolithic towers stretching out from a vast cathedral-like base. Each tower was tipped with a diamond-shaped roof and encrusted along its length with beautiful statuary and murals, though it was difficult to guess at what any of them depicted at this distance, even with half the city providing light to see it by. What _could_ be seen was the statue standing between the three towers, depicting a tall, saintly woman cloaked in a face-concealing robe; this building could only be the palace that she'd been told about.

Minutes passed, with Glinda paralysed with fear and amazement at the sight of everything around her, and the monorail continuing its slow journey towards the palace; but eventually, the entrance to a tunnel yawned open in the wall before them, and then the monorail was surrounded by nothing but blackness.

She wasn't sure what might happen next: however, one possibility she expected was for the monorail to grind to a halt inside an underground train station of pure white marble, decorated with statues of bold heroes and magnificent beasts; there, she'd be escorted by guards along a narrow, winding series of corridors that led the Empress' throne room. But given just how much this strange country was doing in order to confuse and subvert her expectations at every turn, would that really be the case?

No sooner had she thought those words, when she felt a gust of magic sweep into the carriage towards her; as clumsy with magic as she could be at times, even she could recognize a spell of transportation when she felt it.

But then she blinked –

- And when she opened her eyes again, she was no longer aboard the monorail.

She was standing in the middle of an enormous stone hall, apparently made from the same glowing white substance that the rest of the city had been built from. Looking around, it was immediately clear to Glinda that this was some kind of throne room: it had the same dimensions as the Wizard's throne room back in the Emerald City, from the wide flight of stairs to the expansive galleries overlooking the room, though the colour scheme was much brighter of course. There was even a huge throne at the far end of the hall, made of burnished gold and gleaming platinum, and left curiously unoccupied. Indeed, the entire room was empty; there weren't even guards standing by the doors.

All the same, Glinda couldn't shake the feeling of being watched from every single angle, even though she could clearly see that the hall was deserted. So, if only to assuage her own nervousness, she double-checked the room: nobody standing by the doors, nobody lurking in the galleries, nobody sitting on the throne, nobody standing _behind_ the throne, nobody hiding behind the columns, and nobody sneaking up behind her. She took a deep breath, reassured herself that nobody was there, and tried to stay calm; it didn't work: after all, the Empress – whoever she was – was supposed to meet her here and explain why she'd been captured and imprisoned in the first place. If nobody was there, then what was the point of this meeting? But then, now that she thought about it, would the meeting really be such a good thing? After all, this was the same dictator who'd permitted a trio of flying mantelpieces to burn a group of protesters alive.

Sighing furiously, Glinda ran through her routine of checking the room one last time: nobody standing by the doors, nobody lurking in the galleries, nobody sitting on the throne, nobody standing _behind_ the th-

Glinda yelped in shock: someone had just emerged from behind the throne, a tall, spindly figure clad all in black, from the crisp tunic and trousers he wore, to the leather gloves that covered his hands. The only disruption to this colour scheme was the silver mask he wore over his face: it bore a close resemblance to the faces on the sarcophagus lids, but much more detailed; it had a much more distinctive shape to it, with actual cheekbones and a chin, though the look of unnatural calm on the face was almost identical. But that wasn't what had caught Glinda's eye: what _had_ was the array of weapons attached to the intruder's belt, specifically the wide-barrelled handgun and the long, thin blade - a wicked cutting edge barely concealed by the gold-plated scabbard.

But he wasn't alone in the room, either: all of a sudden, there were guards stationed at the door, and on either side of the throne, too – though Glinda hadn't heard anyone entering. Had they been teleported into the room, or had they just been invisible and waiting for her? More importantly, did this mean that the Empress was here to? Or-

"Glinda."

There was a deathly pause, as Glinda very slowly turned to face the speaker.

Standing less than three feet away from her, clad in the same resplendent white robes worn by her statue and by the posters in the sky outside, stood the Empress of Unbridled Radiance. She was tall and slender, her skin as pale and as smooth as that of a porcelain doll, her hair dark, long and lustrous; her face was undeniably beautiful, from the deep crimson lips smiling in welcome, to the eyes that glittered like stars. But then, everything about her seemed impossibly beautiful, right down to the simple grace with which she strode calmly towards Glinda. In fact, the only thing she found odd about the Empress' was that, other than her immaculate garb, the only sign of her authority and wealth was the plain silver circlet she wore across her brow.

But all of this – the crown, the robes, the perfection of her face, skin and body – the more Glinda looked at it, the more it became apparent that it was all secondary to one important fact:

The Empress was none other than Elphaba Thropp.

True, her once-green skin was now as pale and smooth as ivory, but there was no mistaking the distinctive curve of the face and the layout of the features: this woman was Elphaba, somehow stripped of emerald colouration but still Elphaba regardless.

"Welcome back," the Empress / Elphaba continued, her voice calm and unemotional. "It's been too long."

Glinda struggled to find a response, but she couldn't: the sheer shock had frozen her vocal cords.

"And yet, your betrayal still stings." There was a note of sorrow in the Empress' voice, now; unlike the Purified, her expression and her emotions could change. "We promised each other that there'd be no further separations, that we would never again abandon each other. And yet somehow, here we are..." She shakes her head. "Why did you betray me, Glinda? How did our friendship falter, in the end? I thought you were as dedicated to the mission as I was; I thought that I could count on your support when I needed it. And yet, you left me... and you did your very best to destroy me."

This was a nightmare – it _had_ to be; it was the only logical explanation for everything she'd experienced so far. This couldn't be reality, not when she'd found herself in a world where Elphaba had somehow become an Empress and now stood here demanding explanations for betrayals; no, no, in the real world, she was fast asleep in bed, at Shiz most likely, and this was all just a bad dream induced by a few too many cocktails at the previous evening's dance at the Ozdust.

But then, a far worse idea occurred to Glinda's shock-mangled brain: what if she'd actually died and _gone to hell?_ What if the accident at Kiamo Ko had killed her, and everything she'd experienced since then had been part of her eternal punishment? The more she thought about it, the more terrifyingly possible it sounded: getting stranded in a strange land and being separated from Elphaba – a punishment for having refused to help her back when she could have joined her fight against the Wizard; those awful, awful dreams of seeing Elphaba captured and broken – fitting payback for all the times Glinda had wished that her friend had chosen to betray her principals and join her in the Wizard's service; the experiences on-board the train, being forced to watch those protesters being murdered and being betrayed by an elite "friend" – how else would you punish someone who'd known what awful things that had been done in the Wizard's name and chosen to ignore it in favour of wealth and privilege? And the imprisonment in the sarcophagus, that could only be divine vengeance for allowing the imprisonment and brainwashing of Animals. But of course, the worst had been saved for last: here was Elphaba herself, having been allowed into some glorious afterlife that Glinda would almost certainly never see, demanding to know why she'd been betrayed - why Glinda had told Morrible and the Wizard how to bring her out of hiding, and gotten Nessarose killed as a result.

No, _that_ wasn't the worst. Any minute now, Fiyero would be here too, still bloody and broken from all the tortures visited upon him, demanding to know why he'd been left to such a horrible fate...

Once again, her rational mind tried to inform her that there was no proof that any of this was true. Once again, it was ignored: bewildered by everything she'd seen and heard so far, and with the concept of eternal damnation dangling horrifically at the very front of her mind, Glinda was on the verge of tears.

"We were friends once," Elphaba / The Empress whispered. "I thought I could trust you; was it really too much to hope that you'd remain my friend?"

That did it: Glinda started to cry; deep, lung-clenching sobs that shook her entire body, and tears that all but blinded her. As she did so, the Empress swept forward and wrapped her arms around Glinda, enveloping her in a warm embrace; for the next minute or so, she held her there, stroking her back – just as Glinda had done for Elphaba in the dream. As for Glinda herself, she could only weep and pathetically apologize for every act of wrongdoing she'd ever committed in her entire life.

But eventually, her tears dried and her crying dwindled to a halt, and Glinda found herself still reassuringly ensconced in her friend's arms. "Is this real?" she asked nobody in particular.

"Funny you should say that," said the Empress. "As I recall, the last time I saw you in person, you were missing an arm; you were scarred quite extensively too. You developed into an impressive student of magic, but there are some injuries that even you couldn't heal without my aid. So, your presence here is... something of a paradox."

Glinda blinked. "What do you mean?"

"You have _your_ mage-surgeons, I have _mine_: it might be possible to temporarily restore your old appearance... but the question is, why would you want to? You've made it painfully clear that you weren't interested in embracing beauty, and I doubt you'd ever defy those stubbornly-held beliefs of yours, least of all on some foolhardy quest into the capital." Her voice turned cold. "You could, of course, be a decoy sent to distract the attention of my scouts: you've certainly made a big enough spectacle of yourself, to say the least. But you're much too good an actor to be just a distraction; I mean, that dress was burnt to ashes decades ago, and how would you have been able to impersonate a voice that didn't survive long enough to be recorded? And a _wand?_ As I recall, Glinda Upland's wand was snapped in half more than thirty years ago. So, I must ask: who are you?"

"You know who I am," Glinda protested.

"If you claim to be Glinda Upland, you admit to being a traitor to Unbridled Radiance, in violation of every single one of the Radiant Laws, and directly responsible for rebellion against our most sacred principles. If you claim to be one of her servants in disguise, then you are still guilty, albeit of lesser offenses but still guilty. And if you claim to be something else – a temporal echo, an illusion with a mind of its own, a living memory escaped from some veteran's head, or something even more mysterious... well, I'm sorry, but you need to account for yourself, and if you can't, then you must permit my specialists to determine the answers to my questions."

None of this made any sense to Glinda: either she was slipping back into a nightmare, or this was the last moment before divine punishment began anew. "Elphie, I don't understand what you mean, I-"

"Shhh," the Empress whispered, her voice soft and comforting. Stretching out her left hand, she gently stroked Glinda's cheek, caressing her face with slender, delicate fingers and lulling her eyes shut. "It's going to be okay, Glinda," she promised. "Everything's going to be okay. I'll be here for you. No matter what happens, I'll be here for you..."

And then, a stabbing pain tore through Glinda's stomach; eyes opening wider than ever before, she stared down at her body in disbelief - and saw a blade of solid ice protruding from her belly. And as it sliced cruelly into her flesh, a deep crimson flower of blood began steadily blossoming across her dress.

With one swift movement of her hand, Elphaba withdrew the blade and let it melt back into nonexistence; Glinda gasped at the renewed pain, one hand immediately flying to the wound in her gut, the other grasping at thin air in a desperate attempt to keep herself upright. But as she began to topple, Elphaba – no, _the Empress_ – reached out and scooped her up in mid-fall.

"Shhh," she whispered. "It'll all be over in a minute. Just a few more seconds of pain, and then you'll be at peace forevermore."

"Elphaba," Glinda choked out, weak and unfocussed from blood loss. "W... where's Elphaba?"

"The woman you called Elphaba died a very long time ago, my dear. I am the Radiant Empress, and that is all I need be." And with that, she lowered Glinda down into the puddle of blood that had formed beneath her. "Sleep well," she whispered. "Don't wake up..."

The last thing Glinda saw before she lost consciousness was the Empress' robe, still unblemished white, somehow untouched by the blood she'd spilled on it.

* * *

A/N: Will Glinda survive? What awaits Elphaba and Dorothy in Greenspectre? What revelations will a meeting with the mysterious Great Mentor provide? These details and more in the next chapter!


	8. Old Warriors, Old Scars

A/N: This has been another simulteneously exhausting yet fun chapter to produce. As always, I hope you enjoy the developing story so far, and hope you continue to provide the wonderful reviews and opinions that keep my corroded old heart beating. Before we begin, I'd just like to give thanks to the reviewers of the last chapter:

Nami Swann, I'm glad you liked the intensity and confusion of the previous chapter. I'm going to be toning it down a little in this one, but I hope you still enjoy it.

Ms. Helfire, I'm glad you enjoyed the twist, and hopefully the other Might-Have-Beens prove just as intriguing.

Schizzy Godcat... Don't worry. I'll be going a little easier on her in this chapter - key words being "a little."

And WickedlyTragic, I'm glad you like the story so far and I hope this chapter and those to follow continue to excite and entertain. Quite a few of your questions will be answered within this very chapter, but for at least one, you may have to keep your fingers crossed and wait.

So, without further ado, Read, Review and above all, Enjoy!

Disclaimer: Wicked be not mine, nor be the Oz franchise at large.

* * *

It was strange, when she thought about it.

Had you asked her perhaps four or five hours ago, Dorothy would have said that the men and women who'd saved her from becoming one of the Hellion's dolls were almost as baffling and monstrous as the creature they'd apparently rescued her from. Quite apart from the fact that the Wicked Witch of the West was on friendly terms with them, they were some of the most fearsome-looking people that she'd met in her entire life: what with the bewildering assortment of claws, teeth, tentacles, furry pelts, scales, slime and eyeballs that they wore, they looked as though they'd tumbled out of a nightmare. She'd spent most of the long walk to the airship with her eyes clenched shut, trying not to listen to the conversations playing out around her and vowing not to even glance in the direction of her so-called rescuers – which was easier than she'd thought, given she could barely turn her head at the time.

She'd simmered down a little after her time as a guest in the ship brig, of course (_Learning the Wicked Witch actually has a surprisingly pretty name will do that,_ she thought bemusedly) but she was still suspicious of these "Irredeemables": what did they want with her and Elphaba? Why were they taking them to their capital city? And more importantly, _what_ would make ordinary people want to turn themselves into monsters? The questions kept piling up, and the more Dorothy wondered about them, the more her doubt grew.

Leaving the brig had changed all that. Once they'd seen the Ozian flag out on the plain of wrecked airships (and the inexplicable ruins of the Gale house), Elphaba had decided it was an appropriate time to have a word or two with the captain, and had gone marching off to the mess-hall, where the crew was still partying; faced with a simple choice between remaining alone in the brig and asking to be brought along to the party, Dorothy had tugged on Elphaba's sleeve and asked if she minded carrying her into the mess-hall. After all, as disturbing as she found the idea of rubbing elbows with the crew, spending the next few hours alone in the brig and still unable to walk – _and_ unable to escape from any potential attackers – was an even worse idea. So, biting her lip every step of the way, she was carried through the deserted corridors, up a flight of stairs, under a wooden archway and into the blaring noise and music of the party.

Once they were inside, the witch had turned to her and asked, "Do you mind if I put you down for a minute while I talk to Marl? I just need to give my arms a rest for a clock-tick." She nodded in the direction of the nearest unoccupied chair – which was surrounded on all sides by the Irredeemables.

Dorothy floundered at that point. "But what if – but there's – what happens if..."

"Look, just relax; it's just a party."

"But they... what happens if something goes wrong and they-"

Elphaba groaned. "Dorothy, have we really gotten the stage in which you need to be reassured by _me?_" She sighed deeply, an incredulous look stamped on her emerald green features; in all honesty, Dorothy couldn't blame her – after all, she'd never thought _she'd_ end up asking the Wicked Witch of the West for protection either. "If it makes you feel any better," the Witch continued, "I'll be about five feet away: if anything goes wrong, I'll be able to help. Now relax and enjoy the party."

And with that, she gently sat Dorothy down in the empty chair, made sure that she was comfortable, and promptly staggered off to talk with the captain.

For about five minutes, Dorothy sat deathly still, watching the crowd milling around her, hoping that she'd been wrong about them, that none of them were going to hurt her. It wasn't easy: because she had her back to half of the crew, she spent most of those first gut-wrenching minutes expecting to turn around and find herself face to fang with an entire ocean of hungry jaws ready to swallow her whole. Thankfully, nothing of the sort happened; in fact, nobody seemed to pay her much attention. Once the Irredeemables had stopped cackling "Watch out, there's a kid in the room – no more swearing, you lot!" or "Hands off each other, you two, there's impressionable youngsters about!" the festivities continued without much change. So, Dorothy helped herself to some more of the food and nibbled agitatedly on each helping as she watched the party-goers about their business.

Some of them were still eating; some drank from tin mugs of what was _supposedly _champagne; some sang, or played battered musical instruments. Many were passing the time with games: cards seemed to be the most popular, but there were a few checkers players scattered around the room and even the occasional chess-player; two were engaged in a rather heated bout of arm-wrestling; and a tiny cluster of people at the back of the room sat hunched over the tables, whispering and making complicated gestures. Dorothy hadn't the slightest clue what they were doing, until one of them stood up, muttered an incomprehensible word and snapped his fingers, launching a two-foot-long jet of flame out of his thumb. Once the applause and the catcalling had settled down and people had stopped trying to light their cigars with the fire, another member of the little group stood up and waved her crab-claw hands in a rather intricate motion through the air: a moment later, a tiny flock of birds flew through the air and alighted on the table. Even Dorothy, who only _just_ understood Oz and knew next to nothing about this world, recognized magic when she saw it; not for the first time, she absently wondered if she might be able to learn more about it while she was here, maybe even learn a few spells if she got the chance.

But as her eyes swept back across the crowd, she realized that she'd only been focussing on what people were doing rather than what they actually looked like; in fact, she'd only really noticed their "alterations" when they'd become too obvious to ignore. Suddenly curious about the people she'd mistaken for nightmares a few short hours ago, she looked again at the impossible shapes of metal, flesh and patchwork celebrating all around her:

She started with the man sitting left of her; he was playing checkers with blue-scaled Vara, and hadn't spared Dorothy a second glance since she'd first sat down – though that might have been because he had no eyes. Indeed, he didn't seem to have much of a face at all, just a wide mouth full of straight white teeth, and a long, pointed jaw. He didn't have hair either, just skin - and this man's greying skin had the coarse grooved texture of tree bark. Dorothy could tell that it wasn't wood, though, for it moved too flexibly. Meanwhile, at the end of the table to her right, a man with the plump, armour-plated body of a oversized pill-bug was slouched half-asleep in his chair, all eight of the tentacle-fingers on his left hand wrapped firmly around a mug of champagne. Dangling loosely over three of his five closed eyes was a red bandanna with the words "REGISTERED DEMOLITION OPERATIVE" crudely stencilled on it. And across from him, a petite woman with a massive iron bear trap in place of a mouth was contentedly swaying in time to the music, fingers tapping out the beat on table with steel-skewer fingernails. The music itself was being played by a burly figure with a unicycle wheel instead of legs, an accordion clutched between his glittering silver hands, his glass eyes flashing a multitude of colours as he played. And just across from the musician, a man with six arms and a torso pockmarked with gauges and dials was gleefully juggling oranges, much to the amusement of his only audience – the flying monkey that Elphaba had brought into the room with her.

This was not what Dorothy had expected, to say the least: even after she'd gotten used to the idea that the Irredeemables weren't planning on killing her or bent on some kind of wrongdoing, she still couldn't picture them spending their time like ordinary men and women; how could she, once she'd learned that they'd willingly had themselves transformed? She'd never thought they'd be so normal despite their alterations, so... _human. _This kind of partying was the sort of thing she'd seen from the farmhands her Aunt and Uncle had hired from time to time – without the magic, of course.

In fact, she was so astonished by everything that she barely noticed that the eyeless man next to her was asking her a question, up until he tapped her on the shoulder with a long, thorn-tipped finger. "What's your story, then, young miss?" he croaked.

"I'm sorry?"

"Vara tells me you're from someplace called the Land of Oz." He shook his head, but without eyes, it was difficult to tell if it was meant to look doubtful or gloomy. "An' that's a place I haven't heard of in ages."

"You mean, you've actually heard of it? Most of the people here haven't."

"Aye, sad fate that the Land of Oz was lost to the Deviant Nations; fifty years on, there aren't much people old enough to hear tell of it, and half of 'em are still recoverin' from that head-smeltin' business the Empress worked upon the people." He spat contemptuously. "And I'm of the other half."

"The other half?" Dorothy echoed.

Vara coughed politely, leaning forward to explain. "Granddaddy Harker here is one of the oldest of us Irredeemables, a veritable living slice of history; he's seen more battles, expeditions and uprisings than the rest of us put together. In fact," she whispered theatrically, "I've even heard that he was one of the Great Mentor's personal guards before she helped form the Deviant Nations. But you're not allowed to tell, are you, Harker?"

Granddaddy Harker offered a wry grin. "I can neither confirm nor deny my part in any such activities. You happy now?" As Vara gleefully punched the air, he turned back to Dorothy; "Damn girl's been asking me questions like that since she was your age; still likes to bring out my old catchphrase for guests and the like."

"Why's that?"

"Nostalgia. Plus, she's the resident Miss Kids Gloves; she deals with potential recruits, new members of the squad and visitors to the barracks. She keeps 'em happy, introduces 'em to crusty old Deviants like me – and our funny little habits – and teaches 'em the basics of the basics if need be. I mean, why'd you think the Captain had her explain everythin' to you and your governess? Vara's good at helpin' people adjust." He chuckled. "She's a real people person."

There was a pause as Dorothy slowly digested this information. Then, a question occurred to her: "Why aren't you allowed to talk about what happened?"

"Some stories aren't meant to be told, young miss. Plus, in some cases, there's not enough memory left to tell it _with:_ the Empress saw to that, and not everyone can stand having the curse on them undone. I've seen people die from rememberin' the time before Unbridled Radiance; I was one of the luckier ones."

"But what happened to Oz? You said it was lost to memory, but what actually happened to it? I mean, it can't have been _totally_ destroyed fifty years ago, because I just left it a few hours ago. So –"

Harker shook his head. Even without eyes, it was pretty clear that he was starting to clam up again.

"What happened?" Vara asked, for once sounding almost as intrigued as Dorothy. "Did Unbridled Radiance lose contact with it or something? I heard we lost a lot of safe transit routes during the early years of the war; were we just cut off from Oz? Or did someone try mass-teleporting it?"

"I can neither confirm nor deny," Harker sighed. "I swore an oath before the Great Mentor herself; you want to know, you ask her yourself. Maybe she'll tell you more, maybe she won't – it's a touchy issue among her and the governors."

Now it was Dorothy's turn to sigh. Clearly she wasn't going to get anything else out of this particular conversation, so she changed the subject. "Okay, but who is the Great Mentor really? You said that she's one of your leaders and an expert witch, but who _is_ she?"

"She's more than a leader," said Vara softly; the humour was gone from her voice, now, replaced by a tone of reverence that Dorothy had never once heard outside a church. In fact, she was certain that the noise of the party around them dwindled a bit in respect for the topic, although that could have been one of the spells that the amateur magicians in the corner had just cast. "She's a _hero."_

"The Great Mentor was the first to speak out against the tyranny of the Empress; she sparked the revolution and became its first leader; and when our supporters were accused of "Crimes Against Beauty", she took the Radiant Laws and turned them on their head – she told us our bodies were ours to do with as we pleased and gave us the right to alter and transform our bodies if we wished. She even converted some of the Empress' own mage-surgeons to our cause, and gave us the means of sculpting our flesh. And she didn't just help establish the Deviant Nations, either; she led its armies into battle, too: she's one of only four people who've ever fought the Empress herself in single combat and matched her power, and out of all of them, she came the closest to besting her. And even though the Mentor was struck down and crippled by the enemy, they couldn't kill her, and they couldn't cripple her spirit. She still works magic for the Deviant Nations, leading our magicians in defending Greenspectre from U.R.'s own spellcraft. And to this day, she still champions our cause in refusing to bow before the so-called Dominion of Beauty." Vara took a deep breath. "And that is who the Great Mentor is."

As the noise and laughter of the party returned to its normal volume, Dorothy slowly reflected on what she'd just been told; for a time, she considered changing the subject to something a bit less explosive. After all, from the passion in Vara's tone and Harker's recognizably bowed head, this wasn't the sort of thing that Dorothy should take lightly, and there was no guessing how these people would react if she said the wrong thing. But Elphaba's tirade over Dorothy's inability to ask questions had hit a little too close to home for her to ignore, and her curiosity was beginning to blossom. So, perhaps it wouldn't hurt just to ask _one_ question. A small one - something that wouldn't insult anyone; something nice and friendly. And she'd ask it politely, too.

So, taking a deep breath, she said, "I, um, I can see why you call her Great... but if you know so much about who is, can you tell me anything about who she _was?"_

Vara blinked. "I'm sorry?"

"Before she became the Great Mentor, I mean."

A very strange smile crossed Harker's otherwise featureless face, and he muttered a single word under his breath; Dorothy wasn't an expert at reading lips, but it looked as though it started with the letter "B." "B," or possibly "BL."

Out loud, he chuckled, "So the little girl wants to know who our glorious teacher was before the revolution. Well, it's no good asking Vara, missy; it's like Oz – nobody knows the details unless they knew her personally and managed to escape the Radiant Empress' curse. Most of them aren't talkin'. Of course, a few were _told_ the details by the Mentor herself, and they're not talkin' either."

"And what about you? Do _you_ know?"

Harker shrugged enigmatically. "I can neither confirm nor deny. Besides, you'll probably learn for yourself in the next few hours; we're almost out of No-Man's Land. In fact, we might just be crossin' the border into the Deviant Nations right now."

Any disappointment Dorothy felt over the lack of answers was suddenly lost in the surge of excitement she felt in that moment: back in Oz, when she'd still been able to treat her strange journey along the Yellow Brick Road and beyond as an adventure, the point where she'd first seen the Emerald City glittering on the horizon had struck a chord with her; seeing the city up close and walking along its dazzling streets had only deepened the sense of awe and wonder she felt. Perhaps she'd get to see the Deviant Nations _and_ the city of Greenspectre in much the same way? After all, the windows were much larger on this deck of the ship, so maybe she'd be able to get a good view from one of them. Or maybe she could actually be allowed to see it from the top deck itself!

Excitedly, she slipped out of her chair – completely forgetting that her legs were still dead weight; losing balance almost immediately, she would have crashed to the floor had Vara and Harker not managed to catch her by the shoulders.

"Careful now! You haven't fully recovered just yet; I wouldn't try breaking your legs in the meantime."

"How could I?" Dorothy grumbled dispiritedly. "It's not as if I can walk, or even move my feet."

"I wouldn't be so sure about that if I were you," said Vara. She nodded in the direction of Dorothy's feet: there, dangling just a few inches off the floor, the toes of her left foot were slowly twitching to life... and as they did so, Dorothy felt them move, finally achieving sensation in the void that her legs had been hovering in for the last few hours.

Heart leaping once again, she tried moving her left leg from side to side – and almost whooped with joy as her leg finally moved. Immediately, she wrenched herself free of Vara and Harker's mutual grip on her shoulders, anxious to try and walk again – only to immediately topple to the floor.

"As I said," Vara sighed, "You haven't fully recovered yet. More specifically, you've got movement in your legs again, but you haven't got any strength in them yet. Still," she added brightly, "There's no harm in seeing if we can't improve on that..."

For the next five minutes or so, Dorothy's attention was consumed with attempts to stand on her own two feet; of course, it wasn't easy: in almost every single attempt out of twenty, as soon as Harker and Vara set her down on the floor and let go of her arms, Dorothy would either fall forwards or topple backwards to the ground. It wasn't until she finally managed to grab the edge of the table as she fell that she succeeded in staying upright for longer than a few seconds; from there, she went on trying, pushing away from the table when she thought her legs were stable enough and almost immediately collapsing.

And then, on the forty-seventh try, as she pushed away from the table something in her leg _flexed;_ and for the first time since the Hellion had paralysed her, she stood upright. As she very quickly discovered, she didn't have the strength or the balance to walk unassisted just yet, but that paled into insignificance compared to the fact that after so many hours worrying that she'd spend the rest of her life crippled, she could finally _stand._

But as she stood there, smiling triumphantly for the first time in a very long while, she couldn't help noticing the all-too-familiar feeling of being watched; as it happened, the watcher in question was none other than Elphaba: having apparently finished off her little chat with the captain some time ago, she was now standing beside the door, idly watching Dorothy's attempts to walk again. And though the Witch's face remained as hard and unsmiling as ever, for perhaps a fraction of a second, Dorothy thought she saw something different in that faraway gaze, a look of...

Sorrow?

Loneliness?

Regret?

Dorothy remembered what she'd been told about Elphaba's sister – about how she'd been "a sweet girl in a wheelchair," before she became the Wicked Witch of the East – and felt the surge of triumph she'd felt at managing to stand fade a little.

"Now that we've gotten that out of the way," said Vara, oblivious to Elphaba's thousand-yard stare, "Maybe we should head out on deck and see how far across the border we've gotten. Do you want me to carry you, or do you want to try walking?"

In the end, they managed a combination of both: with Harker and Vara holding her hands, Dorothy was "walked" out of the room, her feet clumsily padding they ground as they moved. It looked and felt absolutely ridiculous, but it worked long enough for them to make their way into the corridor and up the stairs to the top deck – Elphaba following quietly in their wake. Finally, after many twists and turns, they emerged onto the sparsely-crewed upper deck, now bathed in the orange-gold light of sunset.

Thankfully, the wind wasn't too strong, otherwise Dorothy might have had some inkling as to just how high up they were – and would have probably panicked as a result. But it wasn't until Harker and Vara finally led her towards the guardrail that she finally got a good look at the landscape hundreds of feet below: just as Harker had said, they were almost out of No-Man's Land, for the barren desert of wrecked airships, vast craters and poisonous lakes was slowly dwindling to a halt, ending altogether at the base of a wide expanse of sheer cliffs. It was these cliffs that their own little airship was slowly drifting towards, positioned less than fifty feet above the jagged stretch of rocks that bordered the edge. As they floated closer, Dorothy peered down at the colossal wall of rock below them, and saw that it was dotted with dozens upon dozens of shallow niches and clefts, some large enough to form deep caverns. Once, she was certain that something was moving in the darkness of those cave-mouths, but by the time Harker passed her a pair of binoculars, it was gone.

"Best not to look too closely," he advised her. "Here there be monsters, as they say, and the Hellion isn't the only one to avoid; the war that made the No-Man's Land gave birth to an awful lot of terrible things, and I hear tell that some of them still live in them caverns, just waitin' for food to pass by. Aye, quite a few people have died tryin' to scale those cliffs, and the fall wasn't always the cause of death."

Shuddering, Dorothy hastily looked away from the cliffs; having one enemy among the inhabitants of No-Man's Land was hard enough to live with – having _two_ might just be the death of her. Then, remembering the Hellion's ability to fly, she briefly wondered if it was really safe to be outside at this point. Though Vara reassured her that the Hellion scarcely followed her prey into the Deviant Nations, Dorothy still spent most of the journey glancing over her shoulder and jumping at shadows – until the airship finally crossed the jagged rocks that crowned the top of the cliff-face and arrived at the border of the Deviant Nations.

Here, the rocks slowly dwindled into a wide plain of grassland, deserted except for the well-camouflaged shapes of the border fortresses – which Dorothy would have missed completely if one of the watchtowers hadn't suddenly telescoped out of the ground to watch them. According to Vara, these underground military bases were the only settlements in these parts, and they were always alert for any sign of invasion, whether it was a horde of rampaging monsters or Unbridled Radiance's invasion fleet; the border-fortresses were the first line of defence, equipped with soldiers, artillery, and a sizeable force of well-armed airships. Looking along the plains, Dorothy could clearly see some of those airships herself – silent, grey-armoured hulks that dwarfed the Irredeemables' cargo ship by several hundred feet, cruising through the sky like airborne whales.

And beyond them, beyond the fortresses, the grassland went on for miles and miles on end, unchanging except for the distant shapes of forests and the even-more distant shapes of what could have been cities – or (as Vara hinted) military bases.

Then, just as Dorothy was staring out at the land ahead in excitement, the air around them suddenly _sparked._

"Did someone just cast a spell?" Elphaba asked.

"Maybe," said Vara. "I don't think it's hostile, though –"

"EVERYONE INSIDE, _NOW!"_ a voice from behind them shouted; there, standing in the passageway leading back under the deck, was the captain, a megaphone clutched in his hand. "We've just had a priority message from the Great Mentor; apparently she's very eager to meet our newest guests before midnight, so she's sending us an extra burst of speed. It'll be activating in just under three minutes."

"So what's the problem?" Dorothy asked, as Vara and Harker began hurriedly shepherding her towards the stairs, Elphaba once again following closely.

"Oh, nothing: it's just that if you're still out on deck when the spell activates, there's a good chance you'll be flung overboard and splattered from one end of the grasslands to the next. Now get inside and settle yourself down on something soft – down by the observation chamber, if you're in the mood for a good view; just don't be standing up when the first burst of acceleration hits. The last thing you need right now is a set of broken legs..."

Thankfully, it took less than a minute and a half for the five of them to clear the last flight of stairs and ferry Dorothy along to the observation chamber. As it happened, the room itself had once been the dock for the cargo ship's escape-glider, up until both the airship and the glider had parted ways at the scrapyard and the old dock had been hastily patched up with reinforced glass windows and repurposed as a sort of crow's nest for the underside of the ship. For good measure, the chamber was also fitted with soft couches and armchairs, all bolted to the deck to prevent them from breaking the windows; it was in the largest of these overstuffed chairs that Dorothy was placed, with Elphaba and Vara hastily taking seats beside her. Harker and the Captain, meanwhile, hurried off to attend to other matters in the upper decks.

For perhaps a minute, there was silence: Vara drummed her hands on the armrest of the chair; Elphaba idly flicked through a notebook; and Dorothy peered through the enormous windows, at once admiring the view of the grasslands _and_ the sparks of magical energy gathering in the air outside.

And then the acceleration hit.

A solid wave of pressure slammed into the three of them, hammering them into their seats; suddenly, the ship was no longer cruising gracefully above the grassland, but rocketing across it at a speed that made stars flash before Dorothy's eyes. Now the grassland and the sky above it mixed into a vague blur of orange, green and grey, mixed with the vivid flash of energy as the ship continued to accelerate. Overhead, there were yells of alarm from the crew, mixed with whoops of excitement, exhilarated laughter, and the sound of the captain shouting orders; but above it all, Doorhty thought she could hear a ghostly, echoing voice, chanting the words of a spell.

Then, the ship began to slow; they were still moving a lot faster than they had been, but the acceleration no longer threatened to fling Dorothy off her feet, and the grassland, while still moving past them at an impressive speed, was no longer a blur. And now, unless she was deeply mistaken, those cities on the horizon looked a lot closer than before.

"Well," Vara panted. "That certainly cuts a lot of time off the journey."

"How long have we got to travel?"

"Oh, a good few hundred miles, and at least two out of fifteen Deviant Nations; we'll also have to slow down a little around cities to avoid hitting any of their usual airship traffic. So, at the rate we're moving now, I'd say it'll take an hour to reach Greenspectre, maybe half." Vara laughed. "What can I say? I guess the Great Mentor's really anxious to meet you two."

"That makes two of us," Elphaba admitted.

"Any particular reasons? Other than the questions you want answered, I mean."

"Well, if she's able to provide it, I'd like some help from the Great Mentor in finding that friend of mine I told you about earlier..."

* * *

It was the cold that woke her.

And wasn't just the pervasive chill in the air around her, either; this cold started at the very pit of her stomach and slowly coursed through her veins like a poison, every inch it took accompanied by a jolt of pain in her midriff – as if she'd just been stabbed there. Bewildered and sleepy, she tried to huddle her limbs close to her body, hoping to preserve what little warmth she had left. But she couldn't; the ice that had taken root inside her was now freezing her limbs in place.

The pain in her stomach suddenly crested; the blade there had stabbed a little deeper than before. _What's happening to me?_ she wondered. _Where am I?_

Quietly moaning in pain, Glinda opened her eyes as far as she could manage; almost immediately, she closed them again – the light above her was almost blinding in its intensity. As she did so, her other senses began to compensate, and she became aware of three things: firstly, she was lying on a very cold metal platform; secondly, the platform was on wheels and being moved somewhere, judging by the shaking feeling beneath her – so it was probably a gurney; and thirdly, there was a very strong smell of disinfectant somewhere.

_A hospital,_ she thought, deliriously, _I'm in a hospital. I'm going to get better here. Hopefully, they'll give me a blanket too..._

Someone was walking behind her gurney. Three someones, judging by the footsteps; three loud pairs of shoes on tiles, echoing down a long, empty corridor. Question was, who were they? Doctors? Visitors? Well-wishers? Maybe one of them would be able to tell her where she was and what was wrong with her. Blearily, she tried to speak, but the only thing that emerged from her mouth was a hoarse, incomprehensible groan.

"She appears to be regaining consciousness, Your Radiance," said a voice from behind her.

"Not for long, I assure you," said a familiar voice. "The Frostfang will keep her paralysed until she returns to the coma state, just as it will keep her body alive until the time comes for her vivisection."

_Elphaba!_

With a thrill of horror, Glinda suddenly remembered the events of the day so far, remembering that horrifying meeting she'd had with the Empress – and being _stabbed._ Suddenly, the pain in her stomach and the frost in her veins made sense; she could still feel the wound on her stomach and the dried blood on the front of her dress. But what did the rest of it mean? Was she having a nightmare, as she'd initially thought? Or was this the descent into hell that she'd feared it was going to be? Neither sounded entirely likely: none of her dreams, no matter how wonderful or horrific they'd been, had ever felt so _real._ And they hadn't allowed her to feel pain, either: in every nightmare she'd had in her life, she'd always woken up just before she'd hit the ground, or before the monster had taken a bite... or before the dagger of ice tore through her stomach. And if this was Hell... why bother with this madcap vision of Elphaba as Queen of some tyrannical empire? Why not just torture her?

_Because if this is Hell, it's doing a perfectly good job of it without having to break out the rotating knives,_ a nasty voice at the back of her head opined.

"Speaking of which," the Empress continued, "How soon can Doctor Marsh conduct the procedure?"

"He will be here within the hour, Your Radiance."

"Good. And the prisoners that arrived with her?"

"Still in their sarcophagi, Your Radiance, all of them awaiting interrogation just down the corridor."

"Good, good..."

For a minute or so, there was silence, except for the rumble of the gurney's wheels and the footsteps of the Empress and her adjutants. Then, Glinda felt them turn a corner, and a moment later, the gurney rolled to a halt.

"Thank you for your time, Orderly Rennic," said the Empress. "If you would be so kind as to allow me some time alone with the subject, I would be most appreciative."

"Very well, Your Radiance. Once you are done, I -"

"I think my friend and I can find our way back to the palace from here, Rennic. Besides, it's time you went home, don't you think? Your daughter will be missing you."

"... I... thank you, Empress, I-"

"Think nothing of it. Have a good evening, and say hello to Halina for me."

Over the man's babbled thanks, there came the sound of the orderly hastily retreating down the corridor. As soon as his footsteps were out of earshot, Glinda felt a warm grip encircle her own frozen right hand, and briefly rejoiced at feeling the cold in her veins retreat a little; then, another warm hand caressed her face, and a voice whispered "Open your eyes, my child. I hoped you would remain asleep, but as long as you're still conscious, perhaps it's best that we talk..."

In spite of herself, Glinda found herself willingly opening her eyes; squinting against the bright light above, she saw the Empress standing over her, gently stroking her face with smooth, delicate fingertips. Guarding the door behind her and still dressed in his crisp black uniform, meanwhile, was the masked figure she'd seen by the throne; presumably, this was the Empress' bodyguard, but why she needed a bodyguard to confront somebody who couldn't even move on her own was anyone's guess.

"I _am_ sorry about the knife," the Empress whispered, and astonishingly, she actually sounded the part. "But I have my citizens to protect, and my beliefs to uphold; you understand, don't you?"

Glinda tried to answer, but all that emerged from her frozen throat was a terrified whimper.

"I know, I know, my child; the paralysis frightens you. The thought of being vivisected frightens you. I can only ask your forgiveness for leaving you like this... but you needn't fear death. The surgeon may cut you open, but if he finds that you aren't one of Glinda's spies and your mind is untainted by Deviancy, there yet may be a place for you among us. And even if your body is destroyed to uncover the truth, I promise your mind life eternal within the Soul of Paragon." She hesitated, a sad little smile crossing her face. "It's the least I can do for you, my poor, beautiful child."

She leaned forward, and very gently kissed Glinda on her forehead.

"Regardless of what the doctor finds, you will always be an innocent to me. After all, no true disciple of Glinda could ever shed a tear for had happened; I doubt even Glinda herself would cry if we were to even meet again..." She stroked her face one last time. "Goodnight, my child. And remember what I told you: _everything is going to be alright_."

And with that, she strode away; immediately, the cold returned to Glinda's body – as did the worst of the fear. But as the Empress left her side, she saw that her masked bodyguard was staring at Glinda with an expression of such profound curiosity that even his expressionless silver mask couldn't disguise it. For a moment, it looked as though he was about to approach her... but then the Empress put a hand on his shoulder and whispered, "I'm sorry, my friend. It isn't really Glinda."

The bodyguard bowed his head, his emotions suddenly unreadable again. Then, without another word, he turned and followed the Empress out the door.

If she could, Glinda would have screamed at that point: she would have yelled and wailed and kicked the gurney loud enough for everyone in the building to hear. She would have shouted at the Empress, _"Don't leave me here! Please don't leave me frozen like this, it feels like I've been buried alive! Oh sweet Oz, it's so cold, it's so cold, it's so cold... Please, I'll do anything – absolutely ANYTHING, just don't leave me here!"_

But alas, her jaw was still frozen, so the most Glinda could do was scream these words inside her mind and wait as darkness claimed her vision once again...

* * *

After less than six minutes of flight, the airship finally reached the first of the Deviant Nations.

Elphaba wasn't entirely sure what to expect, given the fact that the only inhabitants of the area she'd met so far were the Irredemmables – who were, as he'd proudly indicated, an elite (and decidedly fanatical) group; thankfully, while she'd been questioning the captain, one of the few things the man hadn't been infuriatingly vague about was the nature of the territory they were currently entering. For a start, most of the Deviant Nations were more like oversized city-states than anything else, supporting large interconnected districts rather than individual settlements; only a few Nations had more than one city, or had separate towns and villages. Thanks to the constant bombing raids, border skirmishes and communications blackouts during the earlier decades of the war, most of the Nations had been forced to develop a jack-of-all-trades approach to industry, right down to farming their own crops on the outskirts of the cities – and not stopping even once things had settled down and actual farming sectors had been built in the north.

The first of the Nations they reached was one of the jack-of-all-trades territories, a high-walled city of solid-looking ziggurats and pyramids, each of them built to withstand attacks from any monsters or enemy airships that made it past the border fortresses; for good measure, a vast array of gun turrets and artillery batteries had positioned across the walls and buildings. Thanks to this, its position just behind the border, and the preponderance of step pyramids throughout the city, the Nation had been given the cheeky nickname of "The Deadliest Doorstep in the World," commonly shortened to "Doorstep." Outside the walls, the districts were arrayed in wedge-shaped segments, except for the farming district, which took the shape of a ring surrounding the entire city. However, what caught Elphaba's eye were the factory districts: having seen the industrial towns of Oz from her broomstick, she wasn't surprised to see the towering chimneys, the enormous machines grinding away with their gears and conveyer belts, the squat bulks of factories, refineries, foundries and smelters, and the newly-finished vessels slowly rumbling free of their shipyards for their maiden voyages (though here, airships were used instead of sailing ships and ironclads).

What surprised her were the groups of huge purple jellyfish hovering above these industrial districts, their tendrils waving in hypnotic patterns, their blubbery bodies only moving to avoid airship traffic.

"What the hell are _those?"_ Elphaba asked.

"Smogeaters," said Vara. "They devour the industrial pollution our cities produce and keep it from spoiling the air, the water or the farmland; digestion turns all the old smog and spillage into a wide variety of useful materials. Cement, for one thing. Just don't ask how we go about collecting the... product."

"But where did you find the damn things? How did you tame them? How did you even discover they could eat pollution in the first place?"

"We didn't find them at all: we made them."

Dorothy and Elphaba exchanged disbelieving glances, and then said, in perfect unison, _"What?"_

"Why so surprised? You've already heard how our mage-surgeons can alter flesh; those tentacles and claws weren't all taken from animals, you know – most of them had to be grown from scratch. It's the same with the Smogeaters, just on a bigger scale."

"Does Unbridled Radiance have these things?"

"Of course; do you really think they'd be able to keep up with their doctrine of Beauty In All Things if they had to deal with industrial runoff turning their drinking water purple? Yeah, they've got Smogbelchers, though I hear they're meant to look prettier, and they've probably given them a much more flowery name, too."

Head spinning, Elphaba turned her attention back to the window just in time to see Doorstep slowly drifting out of sight. Eight minutes, an empty stretch of grassland and one sizeable military base/airstrip later, the next Nation rumbled into view: this one was much less grand than the previous one, being comprised of small mining towns rather than one gigantic metropolis. Known as "Warren" to the locals and "Rabbitass" to everyone else, a good deal of its population made its living underground, either searching for valuable deposits of metal, or growing fields of mushrooms and lichens; in fact, many of Warren's inhabitants actually lived underground, converting caverns and disused mineshafts into houses and apartments, and connecting each settlement (aboveground or otherwise) via a growing network of tunnels and underground highways. With so much activity going on beneath the surface, it was no surprise that this particular nation seemed the quietest from the air; in the villages they flew over, the streets were empty and the buildings showed no signs of life whatsoever – except, of course, for the mines and their attached facilities. The roads connecting these tiny settlements were equally bare, apparently only used by personnel from the nearby military base. Even Warren's only major city looked deserted to Elphaba, its alabaster streets gleaming in the sunset and unoccupied except for the occasional sweeping machine making its way across the boulevards. "At least until tourists decide to pay the city a visit," Vara cheekily remarked. "You'd be amazed at just how much money the Warrenfolk make in renting out the old surface buildings..."

Eventually, though, the last of Warren's humble townships dwindled away into open countryside; slowly, the flat grassland plains gave way to trees, rivers, lakes and hillsides, and before long, a vast tract of forest. Very few people lived out here by choice, according to Vara; though the region wasn't nearly as dangerous as the one on the border of Unbridled Radiance, life out here was still particularly unforgiving: thanks to the denseness of the trees it was very difficult to navigate, forcing ground transports to avoid passing through it at any cost, so anyone unlucky enough to be stationed out here had to live off the land – or wait for the monthly airdrop of rations. At first, it didn't seem as if the area was inhabited at all, as they sped across the verdant woodland, Elphaba caught a tantalizing glimpse of what looked like camouflaged gun turrets just protruding from the canopy, ready to open fire at any hostile airship sighted; remembering that first mind-pummelling dream of being ambushed and brought down by Ozian snipers hiding in the treetops, she only _just_ repressed a shudder.

As she did so, she noticed something else: the airship was slowing down, gradually returning to its original speed as the magic of the acceleration spell wore off. Was this a mistake, or were they getting close to their destination? Judging by the grin on Vara's face, it was probably the latter. Elphaba pondered this as the forest beneath them slowly receded back into the grassland: after everything she'd heard about this mysterious city of Greenspectre, about the righteous cause of the Deviant Nations, and about the power and benevolence of the Great Mentor, she couldn't help but remember the things she'd heard about the Emerald City and the Wizard, before she'd discovered the truth.

Was the Mentor really the hero that the Irredeemables worshipped her as, or was she just as powerless and counterfeit as the Wizard himself? And even if her fears were entirely groundless, would she really be able to help her? Answering her questions about the Ozian ruins she'd seen in No-Man's Land was easy enough, but what about finding Glinda, or sending them back to Oz? Was any of _that_ possible?

Beside her, Dorothy Gale let out a gasp of amazement; Elphaba looked up at the observation window, absently wondering what had caught the girl's attention this time... and saw the plains slowly dissolve into neatly ordered farmlands, pastures and row after row of crops, which in turn gave way to quaint residential zones composed of oddly-shaped houses and apartment blocks; then the squat rectangles that made up the warehouse districts; then industrial regions blistering with smokestacks and factories, the air above them clogged with the luminescent bulks of Smogeaters; then the air-docks, some built flat on the ground, some taking up entire buildings, a few even hovering thousands of feet above the city – all of them receiving a steady stream of airships in all shapes and sizes. And then, past the docks and past the rows of gun-turrets, looming over the iron-grey lake to its north, stood the gargantuan city itself...

Unlike the stocky pyramids and ziggurats of Doorstep, this was a city of towers reaching towards the twilit sky above it; and unlike the Emerald City, there was no overarching style to the place – every building seemed to have been constructed by a different school of architecture: unadorned concrete skyscrapers a hundred stories tall; vast monuments of polished marble and fluted pillars; needle-like spires made from glass and steel, reflecting the lights of the city around them; stucco domes clustered with tall, thin towers ending in corkscrew-shaped tips; ominous cathedral-like structures with high, pointed rooves and gigantic stained-glass windows; ring-shaped towers of granite, the rim of each ring clustered with hanging gardens and greenery; lush parkland flourishing on ground suspended almost five hundred feet above the ground; statues, obelisks, monoliths, and gargoyles by the million, some barely visible from the airship, some dwarfing the buildings they were surrounded by... There were some buildings that didn't seem to touch the ground at all, and a few that stood taller than the rest by virtue of hovering above them. And throughout it all, Elphaba could sense – actually _feel_ the tantalizing spark of magic in the air.

Vara stood, and slowly walked to the window. "Dorothy, Elphaba," she proclaimed, "Greenspectre welcomes you."

She pointed to a distant shape on the horizon. "And that's our destination over there; Greenspectre Palace – home of the Great Mentor."

And as the building came into view, Dorothy and Elphaba's jaws dropped in perfect unison for the second time that day.

Even if they'd never seen the Palace before, even if neither of them had ever even approached the Wizard's official domain, they still would have recognized the building on sight – for the building's walls were still covered in emeralds.

"Vara," mumbled Elphaba, "Just how old is the Palace?"

"Oh, nobody's entirely sure; we don't know when it was built, truth to be told. All that's known is that it was one of the few structures that survived the rise of Unbridled Radiance, so it was probably built decades before the Empress came to power. Why do you ask?"

Elphaba very slowly put her head in her hands; the feeling of awe and wonder she'd been feeling less than a minute ago had been replaced by a crushing sensation of dread. She wasn't sure what was going on, but she had a few theories – and the more she thought about them, the worse they got. And they all started with that infuriatingly cheeky name: "Greenspectre." _The ghost of the old Emerald City,_ she thought. _Is this the future or something much worse?_

So, with the two guests of the Irredeemables lost in thought, it was in complete silence that the airship descended towards a private airship dock just above the colossal entrance of what had once been the Wizard's Palace...

* * *

As soon as the airship had docked and the crew had begun to disembark, they were promptly greeted by a cluster of palace guards – instantly recognizable by the immaculate grey uniforms and elaborate pieces of armour they wore, not to mention the deadly-looking rifles they all held. Though they weren't members of the Irredeemables, at least according to Vara, they had undergone alteration in order to make them more effective bodyguards, equipping them with faster reflexes, stronger muscles and a skin almost like chain-mail. Most of it was subtle and under the surface, except of course for their bulky musculature and uniformly thickset builds – the only real hint to their augmentation.

"Probably here to escort you to the Mentor's chambers," the Captain whispered.

"What about you and the others?"

"We've got a meeting with this city's Chapter Master –the head of the Irredeemables in Greenspectre. And that's about all I can tell you; half of its classified, the rest I won't even know about until we actually get in there." He shrugged, the gears in his prostheses whirring musically. "What can you do? Perhaps we'll see you again someday. It all depends on what the Great Mentor decides in the end; either way, it's been a pleasure." He shook her hand, and then strode off down the gangway and into the milling disorder below, vanishing amidst crowds of departing Irredeembables, dockworkers, guards and emergency medical technicians (who currently helping the crew-members who'd been scorched by the Vigilant Eyes).

Most of the crew made similar goodbyes to Elphaba and Dorothy, the most enthusiastic version being delivered by Vara - who actually paused to thank the two of them for brightening up the return voyage. "Remember," she told Dorothy, "Keep up the walking attempts; the more you exercise the legs, the quicker the paralysis wears off."

Harker's farewell was more subdued, consisting largely of a ten-second-long eyeless stare at Elphaba. "When you meet the Great Mentor," he whispered, "Just remember this: no matter what she _used_ to be, she didn't get this far in life by luck alone, and she certainly didn't do so without having to make sacrifices."

"I get it, you want me to show all due respect. You're not telling me anything I don't already know, Harker; I understand _perfectly."_

The eyeless man just smiled mysteriously. "No you don't," he said. "Not yet." And without another word, he strode away.

Now alone on the dock except for the squad of palace guards and the few remaining workers, Elphaba finally approached the waiting escort, Dorothy holding her hand and tottering awkwardly behind her. However, to their surprise, as soon as they were within arm's reach of the guards, the squad leader turned in Dorothy's direction and rumbled, "Not you, Miss."

"Excuse me?"

"The Great Mentor welcomes you to Greenspectre, Miss Gale, but she has not yet granted you an audience with her; for the moment, she only wishes to speak with Miss Thropp. In the meantime, she has provided the two of you with a palace apartment for the duration of your stay in the building-"

"And you want me to stay there until the meeting's over," Dorothy finished wearily.

For the first time since he'd first spoken, the squad leader's expression finally betrayed an emotion – in this case, sheepishness. "Well, it has been strongly recommended," he said at last. "I am sorry for the inconvenience."

Sighing like a deflating balloon, Dorothy reluctantly agreed. Elphaba could tell that she was disappointed; the girl had no doubt had a hundred different questions to ask the Mentor, and all of them to do with either getting back to Oz or getting home to Kansas. But surprisingly, other than the exasperated sigh and the slump to her shoulders, she didn't show any other signs of disappointment – least of all the tears and the bawling that she'd come to expect from the girl.

One way or the other, the squad was divided in half: the first group escorted Dorothy through the right-hand exit to the dock, which apparently led deep into the palace's eastern wing, the residential/luxury sector of the building where most of the administrative staff and servants lived; the second group guided Elphaba through a door leading into the western wing of the palace. According to the squad leader, who apparently never missed a chance to drone on about the building's layout to anyone too polite to refuse, this was where the actual work of government actually took place, and where the governors of the other Deviant Nations held their council meetings. For the most part, all that Elphaba saw of it was a long, winding labyrinth of red-carpeted corridors and lacquered mahogany doors, populated only by the occasional functionary wheeling trolleys of files and folders down the hall; occasionally, though, a door would creak open, and she'd get a tantalizing glimpse of the workplace beyond: some were just offices clustered with people and paperwork; opulent meeting halls, presumably for conferences and important meetings with visiting dignitaries; and perhaps most fascinatingly of all, a control room filled with equipment and uniformed soldiers hard at work, pouring over maps and whispering into radio transmitters.

But other than those brief moments of excitement, the guards didn't seem to be making much progress in the journey. It took about half an hour of walking before Elphaba finally worked up the nerve to ask "Where exactly _is_ the Great Mentor?"

"She's on the top floor of the building, Miss Thropp."

"Ah. Correct me if I'm wrong, but are we still only on the eighth floor... and moving westwards, not upwards?"

"That's right, Miss. We're taking a slight detour through the medical centre first; the Great Mentor's decreed that you should be inspected before you are allowed to speak to her."

The feeling of dread bubbling in Elphaba's stomach intensified. "What am I being inspected _for_, exactly?"

"Oh, toxins, contagions, concealed weaponry, anything that could pose a threat to the Mentor. Also, we also have to compare you with your current medical details, just to make sure you really _are_ Elphaba Thropp."

And before Elphaba could so much as blurt out the word "What?" the squad turned a corner, opened a frosted-glass door and pushed her inside. She barely had time to recognize the sterile little room as a surgeon's office, before the white-coated surgeon in question appeared at her elbow and began the "inspection" in earnest: for almost an _hour_, the doctor and her attendants searched every last inch of Elphaba's clothing and body for any kind of weapon, checking her nails for infective material, patting her skin for objects sewn under it, studying her teeth with dental equipment just in case something nasty had been planted in her molars, even resorting to x-raying her bones for concealed blades.

Then came the identity tests: they measured her height, weight, limb-length, shoe-size, and studied the tags on just about every single piece of clothing that she'd been wearing that day; they photographed her face and eyes, taking close-up shots of the skin on her neck and arms, all to be compared with earlier photos they had on file (_And just where the hell did they get those?_ Elphaba wondered). They took clippings of her hair, scrapings of skin from her hands, perspiration from her forehead, took impressions of her fingerprints, and extracted so much blood from her veins that Elphaba had to wonder if this was some kind of passive-aggressive assassination attempt. They recorded her voice (which no doubt sounded extremely frustrated), tested her eyesight and hearing, double-checked the x-rays, and even applied rubbing alcohol to her skin just to make sure that the green colouration wasn't makeup.

Finally, once she'd gotten her clothes back on, they'd brought the guards in and asked her to demonstrate her magical abilities: first, the wild gift she'd often displayed when confronted with strong emotions until she'd finally learned how to control it at Shiz; secondly, a series of basic spells that she'd learned in Madam Morrible's magic class; thirdly, a spell from the Grimmerie. Elphaba performed all three, apparently to the examiner's satisfaction. Then, without so much as a "Thank you for your time," she was whisked out the door and back along the hallway.

_Dorothy,_ Elphaba thought, _something tells me that you wouldn't be so anxious to meet this Great Mentor if you knew just how many hoops they'd make you jump through first. Question is, how and why do these people have a medical file on me? Why do they know so much about me? And is it for the reasons I suspect?_

After about fifteen minutes of walking, they arrived at a cage-like elevator – positioned helpfully at the bottom of a very long flight of stairs leading upward. Squeezing inside the cage with considerable difficulty, Elphaba and all five of the guards rode the elevator up to the very top floor of the palace... where they proceeded to walk along another four hundred yards of corridor, stopping every minute or so to pass through a security checkpoint. Finally, the expedition (which was the only thing Elphaba could call it after the distance they'd just walked) rumbled to a halt in front of a set of double doors; protected by no less than eight heavily-armed guards of their own, the doors were made of solid steel and embossed with magical symbols of protection, many of which even Elphaba didn't recognize. Whoever this "Great Mentor" was, she obviously took security very seriously.

Then, as the squad of guards that had been escorting her lined up along the wall in readiness, the doors swung slowly open, and Elphaba was ushered into the depths of the Great Mentor's inner sanctum.

* * *

At first, she could see nothing: the only light in the entire room came from a tiny spotlight positioned right above Elphaba's head, and beyond that tiny circle of illumination, the darkness was almost impenetrable. However, as her eyes adjusted to the shadows, she thought she could just about discern the shapes of guards standing against the left-hand wall perhaps eight feet away from where she was standing. Further away, something large and imposing was positioned against the back wall, something that might have been a throne or some other piece furniture, but it was too dark to be certain. Presumably, the Great Mentor was waiting somewhere back there, watching her every move, waiting to reveal herself in presumably the most dramatic way possible.

Elphaba wasn't very tolerant of cheap theatrics at the best of times, and the long journey through the corridors _combined_ with the humiliating inspection hadn't done much for her mood. In fact, she was on the verge of conjuring a torch and bringing an end to the whole charade, when there was a loud click from somewhere behind her: turning around, she saw that another small light now illuminated the wall behind her – and what she saw made her heart skip a beat or two.

It was a portrait of _her._

Rendered in oil paints, she was dressed in the same pointed hat, black dress and heavy cloak she'd worn at the start of her campaign against the Wizard; her face was clearly visible, and all of her features had been captured with perfect accuracy, right down to the correct shade of green her skin was coloured – a detail that even the Wizard's propaganda had gotten wrong at times. But whereas those aggravating posters had portrayed her as a hag and a monster, this portrait made her look remarkably human; in fact, to Elphaba's surprise, it almost made her look attractive – particularly the tiny, ever-so-slightly mischievous smirk it wore.

Just as she was starting to wonder what the point of showing her this painting was, or even why the Mentor would have it in the first place, someone behind her laughed hoarsely. "You know," said the voice, "When she was first introduced to the good people of Oz – or re-introduced, as the Wizard put it – some of the citizens asked me why she'd been wicked in the first place. I played vague and philosophical, made up some inspirational-sounding gibberish about how some people are born wicked, others have wickedness thrust upon them... it was all bullshit, of course. It took twenty long years of fighting and toiling and suffering for me to realize the awful truth I'd overlooked."

"Some are born wicked; some have wickedness thrust upon them... but all too many people _accept_ wickedness because it was delivered under the guise of virtue."

There was another loud click, and the overhead lights switched on, finally allowing Elphaba an uninterrupted view of the chamber around her. Once she'd taken in the deep green walls and ankle-deep green carpet, she realized that she'd been slightly mistaken in her first assumptions: this wasn't a throne room, nor was it an office - it was a _bedchamber;_ the large shape she'd seen in the darkness was actually a four-poster bed, surrounded by complicated-looking arrays of medical equipment and monitors. But just as she'd seen, there were guards posted by the left-hand wall, watching their newest guest's every move, and Elphaba only had to look at the way they held their rifles to know that they clearly didn't trust her. Meanwhile, standing to attention at the right-hand wall was a short, nondescript figure clad in the familiar white coat and rubber gloves of a physician; he too was staring at Elphaba, but unlike the guards, he didn't seem nearly as hostile or as suspicious – though the opaque lenses of his glasses made his expression difficult to judge.

And at the centre of the room, in the bed...

"Come closer," the voice whispered. It was hoarse and aged, the tone quiet but just strong enough to carry a hint of menace.

Elphaba tentatively approached the bed, padding through the thick carpet to its left side. There, almost lost amidst the pillows and the blankets of the four-poster, the right side of her face resting against the cushioned bed-head, sat the Great Mentor: she was clearly very old, perhaps seventy or eighty years of age if Elphaba was any judge; her body was frail and emaciated, her skin as dry and worn as old parchment, and dotted with hundreds of old battlescars, burns and pockmarks across her shoulders and throat. Her left arm was a withered husk, the claw-like fingers twitching and shaking at random intervals; the right arm was missing from the shoulder down, replaced by a gleaming mechanical prosthesis of brass and steel. Most of her face seemed a ruin, for on top of the usual wrinkles and sagging skin that age brought, it bore almost as many scars as the rest of her: the left cheek alone was almost torn open by a quintet of lacerations stretching all the way to the mangled remains of her ear; the mouth was ripped and striated by dozens of tiny diagonal scars, and a huge chunk of her lower lip had been sliced off; the skull was cleft around the brow and eye-socket, as if someone had tried to put an axe through her left eye but hadn't quite succeeded, for it was still there, if shrouded by cataracts. And just below the few remaining locks of hair on her head, a crater-like burn exposed a sliver of bone.

And then she turned, exposing the right side of her face: here, things were different. True, the jaw, the lips and the cheek were withered by the old scars of third-degree burns, but for some reason, the scarring stopped just below the cheekbone itself. Above it, from the left side of her nose to the left ear, the face was unscathed. More than that, it actually looked about forty years younger than rest of her: the skin was smooth and pale, the features pleasant, the eye bright and aware. There were even a few luxuriant curls of golden hair dangling from the scalp.

For the second time in as many minutes, Elphaba's heart stopped: she recognized this quarter of the woman's face, the delicate features, the blonde hair, the vivid blue eye...

"Glinda?" she whispered.

The Great Mentor's tattered lips curled into a smile. "What's left of her. And you?"

"I'm sorry?"

"You heard me well enough: who are you?"

Elphaba's jaw dropped open. "You... you know who I am," she said plaintively. "You've got a portrait of me over there-"

"No," said the Great Mentor, voice suddenly cold. "I have a portrait of a woman who's been dead for almost fifty years; in that time, I've seen many bizarre forms of magic on display, but I've never seen anything that can restore the dead to life."

The physician to her right coughed loudly.

"Alright, _effectively_ dead. You are insistent on these things, aren't you?"

"Just trying to convey the facts correctly, My Lady."

Elphaba took a deep breath. "What about the medical examination?" she demanded. "Haven't you seen the results of that?"

"I have. They show that you are physically identical to Elphaba Thropp in every respect: blood type, fingerprints, skin tone, facial layout... but I can't judge your identity by these details alone. A mage-surgeon of skill and experience would be able to mimic them, and our enemies have more than their fair share of professionals that could manage it."

"You think I'm a spy?"

"Or an assassin. I'm willing to consider either possibility."

"But... but... How could anyone fake my abilities?" she burst out. "The wild talent – I was _born_ with that, and I've never seen anyone replicate it successfully. And how many people have been able to cast the spells of the Grimmerie without translating them first?"

"She has a point, My Lady," the physician murmured. "Elphaba's abilities aren't so easily mimicked, even by skilled magicians."

There was a pause, as Glinda's aged doppelganger considered this. She was about to reply, but Elphaba beat her to it: "You think someone powerful enough might just be able to copy my powers? Fine. What about the things _I _know that nobody else knows? I was born in Muchkinland: my mother's name was Melena, my father's name was Frexspar. _He_ hated me from the moment I was born; _she_ was barely allowed a chance to speak to me, and died giving birth to my sister, just a few years later-"

"You do realize that a sufficiently-briefed operative would know these things?"

"_We met at Shiz University!"_ Elphaba almost screamed. "We shared a room for almost a year; we hated each other for the first few months, do you remember that? You called me "the artichoke," and I said you had more beauty products than brain cells. We used to play pranks on each other: you threw my books out the window; I replaced your hair conditioner with green dye. Do you think an assassin would be told all that? And what about that night at the Ozdust Ballroom? I got this damn hat from you for that night – the reason we became friends in the first place! I told you about my little green bottle!" She reached into the depths of her cloak and held up the offending item for the Mentor's inspection. "You told me about how you were going to be engaged to Fiyero," she continued. "If I'm just some operative from Unbridled Radiance or whatever other country you're at war with, how would I know the little things that nobody would ever bother to record, Glinda? Oh, my mistake - how would I know that, _Ga_linda?"

The Mentor's eyes narrowed. "And what am I to make of this, then? What exactly is your cover story, Miss Thropp? How did you get here, and why are you here? I've heard Captain Marl's explanation for how he found you, but I'd much prefer to hear your version of events."

Elphaba sagged a little: the events of the past few hours were beginning to wear her down. But, once the guards had fetched a chair for her to collapse into, she explained everything as best as she could: how she'd found herself holed up at Kiamo Ko, the final meeting with Glinda, the white light and the portal they'd fallen through, how they'd awakened on the borders of Unbridled Radiance, and how she and Glinda had been separated. Finally, she explained how she first met the Irredeemables, pausing only to babble on about the dreams of capture and hospitalization she'd experienced. By the end of it, she was almost trembling with emotion – mingled frustration and shock being the strongest of it. "I thought I'd just ended up being teleported into another country, or something," she said. "But then I started seeing wrecked airships with the Ozian flag, then this palace that used to belong to the Wizard and now I've found you like _this _and and and and..." She took a deep breath. "Is this the future? I mean, you've said I've been dead for fifty years-"

"No," said the Mentor. Her voice was almost unreadable now. "It's not the future – not yours, anyway."

"What do you mean?"

"There's one discrepancy with the medical report – another reason why I still suspected you even after I saw all the correct details: your skeleton is quite dissimilar from the Elphaba I knew in one notable respect: around the time the original x-rays were taken, she was recovering from numerous fractures in her arms and legs; even x-rays taken after she healed would have shown signs of the damage. But in your case, there's no trace to be found. And another thing, several events you referred to never happened to the best of my memory: I don't recall Elphaba _ever_ taking shelter at Kiamo Ko; Nessarose certainly wasn't dead around the date you provided, and neither was Fiyero. In fact, by this time, Elphaba Thropp was no longer known as the Wicked Witch of the West."

"Oh. So is this what you meant when you mentioned me being dead for fifty years? I was dead by that time?"

"In a manner of speaking."

"Then why do you think I'm an imposter? Why would anyone bother to disguise an assassin or a spy as a woman who's been dead for half a century?"

The Mentor said nothing.

Once again, the physician coughed for attention. "Perhaps I could venture to explain on your behalf, My Lady-"

"By all means," the Mentor sighed. "You're the only member of my staff that believes that the two of them are one and the same."

The Physician nodded; then, reaching into the top drawer of a large filing cabinet set into the wall, he drew out a small folder and handed it to Elphaba. "These photographs were taken three days ago by one of our deep-cover operatives in Unbridled Radiance," he explained. "They were celebrating the capture of a large stretch of previously unaligned territory to their empire's north – and the Purification of its leaders, of course."

Elphaba scanned the first photograph for about a minute: in full colour, it showed exactly the kind of celebration you'd expect for a major victory, including rallying citizens, marching bands, parade floats, and brightly-dressed guards. In fact, it was so stereotypical that Elphaba was about to ask what she was supposed to be looking for – up until she saw the woman standing on the balcony above the cheering crowd. Her face bore an astonishing resemblance to –

Heart very nearly stopping altogether, she turned to the next photo: the camera was much more focussed this time, and though it had mainly been aimed at the splendidly-dressed collection of generals, diplomats and other conspicuously-handsome dignitaries, the woman was still very visible. Then, a third photo: this time with the woman in conversation with a tall figure in a gleaming silver mask. And finally, by the fourth photo, there was no mistaking the resemblance: the woman in the photograph was almost completely identical to Elphaba. And the only reason why Elphaba hadn't realized this was because she'd been missing the familiar green skin colour.

"_Who is that?"_ she whispered in disbelief.

"The Radiant Empress," the Mentor replied, voice cold and harsh. "Ruler of all Unbridled Radiance; creator of the Radiant Laws; First of the Purified; and sworn enemy of the Deviant Nations."

"But how... why..."

The Mentor sighed deeply. "It all began perhaps five months into Elphaba's crusade against the Wizard: I was still working for him as the darling of the Emerald City Press; Fiyero was still a member of the guard... and as far as I knew, the "Wicked Witch of the West" was still triumphing over her enemies. Then, one day, we heard the news: Elphaba had been shot down and captured by the Wizard's forces, suffering horrific injuries in the process..."

_Agony – the bullet wounds in her right leg and right shoulder scream with it, and her shattered left leg send deep, pulsing waves of pain across her spine. She's being beaten, she can feel someone clubbing at her face with a rifle butt and someone kicking her in the stomach; she wants to run, or at the very least crawl for her life, but she's so disoriented she can't even tell up from down anymore..._

"... she was both hospitalized _and_ imprisoned for the next few months: the Wizard wanted to give her time to heal while he considered her sentence, apparently. Just about everyone was clamouring for her execution, of course; even the doctors in charge of her recovery wanted her dead – tried to poison her once or twice..."

_She can't breathe: her throat muscles are swelling up, cutting off the air to her lungs. Something in her veins burns, and her stomach lurches in pain. Glinda is holding her hand, screaming for someone to help, but everyone's moving too slowly..._

"About the only supporters she had were Fiyero, Nessarose... and me. For what good it did," the Mentor added bitterly. "I think I spent more time with Elphie in those next couple of months than I did with anyone else in the entire city. I wanted to help her recover, I wanted to make up for all the lost time when I hadn't been able to help her, but most of all, I wanted to make sure she wouldn't spend the rest of her life in prison. So when an offer of amnesty was made, I urged her to take it." Her eyes gently slid shut, as if in remorse. "I thought it was everything she'd wanted out of life: it meant she'd be free, that she'd have a chance at gaining the respect and love of Oz, that she'd be working for the Wizard with me –"

"But why would I... _she_ agree to it? Why would she just decide to work for the Wizard all of a sudden?"

"She didn't have much choice," the Mentor admitted. "It was either that or spend the rest of her life in prison. I told her that even if she hated the Wizard and his policies, she might just be able to influence him or his government enough to repeal the anti-Animal laws. And there was one other gift being offered to sweeten the deal..." She took a deep breath; she was clearly dreading this part of the story. "In exchange for Elphaba's loyalty, Madam Morrible would use the spells of the Grimmerie– combined with a few subtle surgical techniques – to make her look normal. In the end, she accepted."

For almost thirty seconds, the room was completely silent. Eventually, Elphaba whispered, "What happened next?"

"The procedure was both a success and a failure: the techniques Morrible used removed the green from Elphaba's skin, and left the fact that she was beautiful undisguised for the first time in her entire life. But she didn't survive the treatment; at the very moment the last drop of pigment was extracted from her, Elphaba Thropp died..."

The scarred expression hardened. "And something else was born to occupy the shell she left behind. I didn't know it at first, of course; nobody could recognize the fact that the transformation she'd undergone was more than skin-deep. But then, everyone was too busy celebrating the fact that the Wicked Witch of the West was rehabilitated and made good by the might of the Wizard and the purity of Glinda the Good." She laughed mirthlessly. "And you know something, when I told her that she might be able to change the government from the inside, I was right about that much. As the months passed, she began ascending the ranks and attaining power and influence; and she began to change things from the inside. I didn't notice the direction she was moving in; I was too happy to see my best friend working alongside me, living her life and receiving all the respect and love she deserved – without realizing that my friend, the one who'd really deserved those accolades, was long-dead.

"I won't trouble you with the details of how she went about altering things in her favour, because truth be told, it went on for almost three years before she finally made the decisive move: a coup d'état; it turned out that she'd been acquiring supporters and followers, even securing the loyalty of renegade factions of the guard." The Mentor sighed. "And as shameful as it is to admit it, I'd known this was going to happen – supported it, too. So did Fiyero, hence why she ended up with the guards on her side. But it wasn't until after the Wizard turned up dead and the first of the Radiant Laws was passed that we realized that we'd made a terrible mistake: the monster who'd claimed the throne was – as far as I could tell – a reflection of every bit of loathing and discrimination that Elphaba had been subjected to in life; as far as the newly-crowned Empress believed, she really _had_ been wicked because of her green skin, and any attempt on her part to do good would have come to nothing because of her "inherent evil." She told me that she could see wickedness everywhere she looked, manifest in the ugliness and imperfection of the people, and the only way to cleanse Oz and the rest of the world of it was through similar methods to the ones she'd been subjected to."

The physician handed her another stack of photos: these depicted men and women splayed out on operating tables, their skulls open and their brains exposed, the skin on their faces slowly being peeled away by intricate machines. Worse still, in most of the photos it was alarmingly clear that the victims were alive and very much awake during their mutilation. Elphaba swallowed hard, trying not to let nausea overcome her- or show on her face - and turned to the Mentor for an explanation

"You've heard of Purification before, no doubt, but you haven't seen it in action – the mage-surgeons flensing away the skin and replacing it with flesh-porcelain, cutting out the undesirable sections of the brain and "curing" them of everything that made them people. That was what the Empress wanted: Beauty In All Things. Servants would be allowed plainness; the commonfolk simple prettiness; those who achieved greatness would have to be beautiful, or be _made_ beautiful through Purification. The ugly, the disfigured, deformed and scarred were scheduled for corrective surgery to make them more acceptable... and those that refused were executed."

Another silence followed, before Elphaba finally found her voice: "So you led a rebellion against it."

"Not as simple as you make it sound, but that's the long and the short of it. I tried to reason with the Empress, tried to explain that you couldn't do this without making enemies. And when that didn't work, I appealed to other sections of the populace, first for peaceful negotiation... then for open resistance. Some of my supporters were just angry citizens that didn't want to lose their relatives to Purification; others were political groups and wealthy business-owners that understood just how much the Empress would cost them if they submitted to her demands. And eventually, there came the radicals: the people that the Empress called Irredeemable, who eventually adopted that name in pride, who spat in the face of beauty and willingly disfigured themselves. We started with petitions, blockades, protests, everything we could do to get attention and change the Empress' mind.

"Eleven months later, it was civil war – one half of the population of Oz against the other. Even when we fled and formed our own makeshift fortresses and cities to the west of Oz, they still attacked us: you've seen the No-Man's Land that formed as a result. At the time, they thought they could beat us easily once we were out of Oz." She laughed, a hint of genuine humour in her voice this time. "And look how it all developed from there: fifty years later, the angry citizens, fearful politicians and petty businessmen are now the Deviant Nations, and the fringe group of self-mutilators have become a movement found in every city of our proud union."

"But why doesn't anyone know about Oz?" Elphaba wanted to know. "It's only been fifty years, so it can't have fallen out of public memory that easily."

"One would think... but the Empress believed that her philosophy of Beauty In All Things was more than just the cleansing of the individual's ugliness in body and mind; she believed it was the cleansing of an entire population of ugly influences – including all record of the imperfection that had existed before her rise to power. Oz had already been torn down to make way for Unbridled Radiance by that stage; the Empress did her best to destroy its very memory. Even we weren't entirely safe from it: many of us forgot all about Oz, and the attempts to restore their memories often ended up killing them. And later, Unbridled Radiance took a step further: their magicians tried to cast a spell to destroy every single memory of our citizens; they even worked it in person, on airship fleets right above our Nations. We repelled them – in one of the bloodiest battles in our entire history."

She pointed to the stump of her arm, where the intricate mechanisms of the replacement whirred and clicked. "I lost my arm in that attack; gashed my face all to hell, too. But the Empress wasn't pleased at being beaten: once she was done burning my face to gristle, she left me with this, too..." She pointed to the quarter of her face that remained young and unblemished. "A curse that not even my magic could erase. It kept one tiny fragment of my beauty intact while the scars on the rest of my face were preserved for all time, unchangeable even by the strongest magicians in the country. She wanted it to remind me of everything I lost, to show me that I was beyond redemption in her own eyes, and of course to stab at my pride. I won't lie: it did shake me up; I was still vain then, and vanity takes a long time to strangle. She knew me all too well, you see...

"... Which brings me to the point which I've been building towards: with the Empress still attempting to either wipe us out or force us to capitulate – and very aware of the things which might just persuade me to let my guard down – how can I trust you?"

"But why would she send me? You said it yourself – I'm everything she hates!"

"Or so you seem: for all I know, you're one of the Empress' body doubles, with just a very convincing illusion keeping people from noticing the difference in skin colour. With advances in both technology and magic, certainty becomes that much trickier to maintain. Or perhaps you're a mercenary loyal to the Empress but not one of her believers – it's not entirely unheard of. Or maybe there's points in the Empress' doctrine that she's willing to compromise on if it means victory. You might even be working for a different group altogether as part of a first strike against the Deviant Nations. Plus, let's not forget, I can't exactly confirm your story of arriving in Unbridled Radiance via a magic portal, can I? It's a bit convenient that you ended up bumping into one of my elite squads, too – and convenient that the Vigilant Eyes spared you."

"Mentor... Glinda... whatever you call yourself these days, just listen to me – _please._ If I'd wanted to kill you, I'd have done so the moment I got in the door; and as for spying, why would I make myself that conspicuous by making myself look like _this_? I might as well have had a neon sign over my head reading "PAY ATTENTION TO ME." And as for the Vigilant Eyes not firing at me, just because I happen to look like her enough to confuse the damn things doesn't mean I'm anything like the version of Elphaba those things take their orders from –"

"_**ELPHABA IS **__**DEAD**__**!"**_ the Mentor bellowed. **"**_**HOW MANY TIMES DO I HAVE TO SAY IT?" **_A violent gust of magic swept across the room, knocking Elphaba out of her chair and setting fire to the bundle of photographs in her hand.

"She died on an operating table five decades ago, as part of a deal with her enemies that I forced her to accept!" the Mentor continued, voice quieter than before but still loud enough to make the guards flinch at every word. "The creature wearing her skin right now is absolutely nothing like Elphaba Thropp; you might believe otherwise, and my physician might believe otherwise, but that doesn't change the fact that my friend is dead because I all but killed her myself, and Oz is dead because I let a monster take her place!"

She paused for breath; slowly, the echoes died away – as did the flames on the carpet.

"I'm sorry," she said at last. "As you can see, the years have left their mark on me – and not just in flesh, either." She shook her head. "I'm afraid that until we can determine who and what you are, you're going to have to remain under house arrest in the apartment we've assigned you, with your powers monitored and nullified until we're certain of your allegiance."

"But-"

"I know this hardly sounds fair to you, but try and look at it from my perspective: I have no idea who you are, where you came from and what your true intentions are; the only information I have is what you've been able to provide me with, which unfortunately cannot be confirmed as of now. With enemies who can either alter their appearance at will or hire surgeons to alter their appearance for them, what would you do in my position?"

Elphaba opened her mouth, hoping to muster some of her old righteous anger. But it immediately guttered and died before she could call on it; the barrage of grisly information and emotional turmoil had virtually quenched what little remained of her energy. In the end, she could only sigh and mumble, "I'd keep me under observation until I find some evidence of honesty."

"As you say. Now, if you'll excuse me, I have other matters to attend to. In the meantime, my operatives will be searching for any information regarding your testimony, so there's no reason to think that your incarnation need be permanent."

_Oh dear._

"What happens if you can't find any evidence? What sentence will you pass?"

"I'm not the only deciding judge." The mismatched eyes turned hard and vicious again. "But if you were found guilty of the crimes you're suspected of, you'd be facing life in prison at the very least. At the most, you'd be in front of a firing squad - and the only reason why that kind of leniency would be permitted is because most of the Governors didn't know Elphaba Thropp as I knew her. They wouldn't understand the insult to her memory such a imposter would represent." She turned to the squad of guards at the door. "Escort her out."

"One more thing!" said Elphaba, as the guards once again began clustering around her. "I told you that Glind – the one I knew, I mean – the last I saw of her, she was on a train heading to Exemplar. Some of the Irredeemables said that you've got deep cover agents in that city, and they might be able to rescue her."

The Mentor frowned deeply. "If your friend is anything like my younger self, then chances are she'll have used her real name in earshot of some Purified security operative. And even if she hasn't, they have almost every existing record of my appearance on file, and she won't get far without attracting attention. I'm sorry; but you may have to face the possibility that she is already dead. Assuming she exists, anyway."

* * *

It was almost 8:30 PM by the time Elphaba was finally escorted through the doors of the apartment.

Dorothy, who'd been there for some time with little to do but sit around, exercise her legs and try not to avoid jumping every time Chistery knuckled in her direction, was already tottering forward to ask questions about the Great Mentor: her name, what she was like, what they'd decided on, and if there'd be a chance for an audience with her tomorrow morning. But as she did so, she noticed something had changed in the Witch's demeanour: for once, she no longer walked with the usual confident stride or wore the brisk, businesslike expression that was her usual substitute for an enraged scowl. Now, she looked tired, almost dispirited: her shoulders were slumped, her eyes half-lidded and listless. There was a paleness to her skin, too, a sickly greyish tinge to her usual vibrant green.

"What happened?" Dorothy asked.

Elphaba smiled. It wasn't a particularly convincing smile, because more than anything else it reminded Dorothy of that time an unlucky farmhand had gotten an eighteen-inch splinter of wood clean through his thigh. He'd been wearing that same agonized near-grin as he'd waited for the doctor to arrive.

"Nothing much," she said. "They're going to be keeping us here for a little while until they can decide what to do with us."

"For how long?"

"They didn't say."

Dorothy considered this, and then asked a question she'd never thought she'd ever ask of the Witch: "Are you alright?"

The smile grew; if anything, it looked even more desperate. "Perfectly fine," she said; there was a quaver in her voice, though. "Couldn't be happier."

Then, without saying another word, she turned and walked hurriedly over to the nearest bedroom, and closed the door behind her. Dorothy tottered after her, closely followed by Chistery; she wasn't entirely sure what she was doing (although Chistery was doubtlessly certain, given that the Witch was his owner), but something about the pained look in Elphaba's eyes made her worry about what might be going on behind the closed doors. After all, when ordinary people were upset, the most they did was break things and occasionally break people; what would a _witch_ do?

And then she heard it: the unmistakeable sound of someone bursting into tears.

Somewhere behind that door, the Wicked Witch of the West was crying.

* * *

A/N: I hope you enjoyed this chapter, ladies and gentlemen; if anyone thinks Glinda/The Mentor's explanation was a little short, don't worry - I will expand upon it in the next instalments.

Oh, and WickedlyTragic, congratulations on guessing the twist to this chapter. I look forward to more theories and opinions...

PS: Just realized I forgot to include part of the chapter title in last night's upload. Not exactly my finest moment...

Next chapter - Glinda's fate!


	9. The Darkest Pits of Hell

A/N: This is one chapter that went a little longer than I thought it would; I kept debating on wether to cut it short at around the three-quarter mark, but I felt it was high time I gave the villains and their deeds a bit more attention than before - hopefully preventing Unbridled Radiance from entering the realms of "Designated Villain." So in the end, I went for a twenty-five thousand word chapter. In any case, I enjoyed writing this one, and I hope you enjoy reading it - and that the extra length won't seem like literary metastasis. But before I begin, I'd like to once again thank reviewers, followers and favouriters for your continued support.

Nami Swann, I'm glad it's all making sense so far; with any luck, I'll be able to keep the story coherent and understandable as it continues - while still providing enough twists and turns to keep things interesting.

LatinPaprika, fear not. Glinda's lot will improve. I mean, she's been horrified, paralyzed and told that she's in line to be cut open - after _that_, things can only get better... eventually. (Evil Laughter)

WickedlyTragic, first of all, I have absolutely no problem with the way your reviews are arranged: it's actually a very good system, given that it keeps all the points you found noteworthy assembled and discussed in an orderly fashion. Secondly, I'm not sure I understand the hatred towards Dorothy at the best of times; I mean, yes she's naive, a pawn of the Wizard and more than a little dim at times, but then, she's a kid - there's a limit to how much brilliance you can expect from children adrift in another word. The only situation when I really dislike her is in the 1940s film adaptation of The Wizard of Oz, where giving the child's dialogue to a grown woman with her boobs taped down resulted in "childish and naive" being downgraded to "possibly brain damaged." In any event, I tend to write Dorothy as a largely neutral character at the mercy of events that she barely understands, and I'm glad you find it awesome. Thirdly, the Hellion's identity will be revealed soon; in the meantime, keep an eye out for the clues - I'll do my best to keep them subtle without making them unnoticeable. Fourthly, I'm very glad you like the descriptions of the Irredeemables; big, intricate descriptions are one of the aspects of writing I live for and having my work on them complimented makes it all the better. Fifthly, in regards to the green dye, I will see what I can do. I may incorporate it into a later chapter, but as I said, we'll see. Sixthly, more details about the Empress's surgery will be forthcoming - as will how details on much of her turn to villainy was due to it alone. Finally, it's great that you're enjoying the story so far, and I hope my work continues to entertain and intrigue.

So, with that out of the way, let's begin. This chapter: despair, horror, gloom and villainy! Read, review and above all, enjoy!

Disclaimer: Wicked was not mine, is not mine, and will not be mine. And the term "magocracy" wasn't my creation either.

* * *

Elphaba wasn't sure why she'd started crying.

After all, she had so many reasons to do so: her separation from Glinda, the disastrous meeting with the Great Mentor, being trapped in this bewildering nightmare of a world, the long chain of events that had led her to this especially dismal point – and the awful knowledge that her oldest and best friend might be dead or about to die with no chance of rescue. And maybe there was also just a hint of disappointment and frustration here, too: she'd gotten used to being accepted and trusted by the Irredeemables; by the time she'd been introduced to the Great Mentor, she'd lapsed into complacency – unprepared for the barrage of suspicion and hatred that had been directed at her. But that was silly, bordering on ridiculous: she'd been subjected to distrust and discrimination for her entire life. Why should the scorn of one paranoid leader bother her so much?

_Because she's _Glinda,_ you idiot,_ a vicious little voice at the back of her skull whispered. _Deny it all you want; it's still her. You're crying because your best friend just called you a liar and an imposter – it's obvious to anyone bothering to look!_

Furiously wiping a few errant tears away, Elphaba tried to think of something else: as accurate as these nasty little voices could be, the sense of confusion and betrayal couldn't be the only reason. After all, there were all the questions she'd tried to ask on her way along the corridor, all of them ignored by the guards: she'd wanted to know if, in this madhouse reality she'd found herself in, her old friends had somehow survived? Had Doctor Dillamond been rescued from the Wizard's specialists? Was Boq still alive, and was he still human? What of Nessa? Was Fiyero still among the living in this world? Of course, she might not be able to recognize any of them after fifty years of hardship, but then again, the Empress somehow still looked young and healthy even after all that time, so maybe not... and contrary to the Mentor's desire to cut a long story short, Elphaba honestly wanted to know how her other self had gone about setting the stage for her gradual rise to power. So, she'd asked all these questions and more of the guards on her way to the apartment, and all of them had been _maddeningly_ ignored.

And what about this Radiant Empress, Elphaba wondered: was she _really_ this world's version of herself? There didn't seem to be any reason for the Mentor and the physician to lie about this, but could she really have become so monstrous, even with her oldest and dearest ambitions in life achieved? In a word, _yes:_ after all, back in Oz Elphaba had, while in pursuit of Animal Rights, managed to _accidentally _ruin the lives of her friends; it only made sense that this version of her had gone on to deliberately ruin so much more in pursuit of something grander. But why did the Mentor claim that this Empress "wasn't Elphaba?" Was there any truth to her belief that the Empress was some monstrous parasite inhabiting the body of her long-dead friend, or was it all just a matter of perspective? Uncertainty – coupled with frustration and exhaustion at the sheer enormity of the problem – was doing it's very best to unhinge Elphaba.

But in the end, the reason for her tears was painfully simple, one blunt, blatantly obvious problem that stuck in her head and refused to budge no matter how many times she told herself that this wasn't the case: _Glinda was going to die and there was absolutely nothing Elphaba could do to save her life._ Quite apart from the fact that the Mentor was right and Glinda was guaranteed to be noticed, there was next to no chance of Elphaba reaching her: at present, the apartment (the _cell)_ was guarded by a squad of heavily-armed guards; the windows were barred and anyway, the only place they led to was a thousand-foot drop to the ground below; her broom was still lying in pieces, and even if she could find some kind of substitute she wouldn't be able to enchant it because the Grimmerie had been confiscated; and that didn't matter anyway because, just as the Mentor had said, the entire apartment was enchanted to nullify Elphaba's powers. She could sense it even now, pressing down on her like blanket made of lead and making the air around her feel dull and lifeless. And even if by some miracle she managed to get out, find the Grimmerie, enchant a broomstick, make it out of Greenspectre, over the border and into Unbridled Radiance without getting shot down... what the hell was she going to do next? She might be able to find her way to Exemplar if she followed the rails from the air, but as for what she'd be able to do once she got there, she hadn't the slightest clue: she didn't know where Glinda would be held, what was going to happen to her and when, or even if she was being held in Exemplar anymore. Plus, thanks to her skin, Elphaba would be about the most noticeable target in the entire area.

_Glinda is dead and there is absolutely nothing you can do to save her._

No, no – there was something, there _had_ to be something. She just needed to think; she needed to clear her mind and concentrate on a solution... and she needed to clear her head of every single niggling issue that kept screaming for her attention... and she needed to calm down too; she needed to take a deep breath, wipe away a few more tears and look at the situation dispassionately... and try to forget that _Glinda was going to die or might just be already dead and-_

Elphaba fought a very powerful urge to take the alarm clock off her bedside table and fling it at the vanity mirror. She needed to concentrate: she needed to push every terrible thing that had happened to her that day into the very back of her mind and try to focus on some kind of escape plan, or some way of convincing the Mentor that she wasn't a fraud... but right now, all she _wanted_ to do was lie down under the covers of the increasingly-comfortable bed and sleep for the next two hundred thousand years.

There was a knock at the door; from somewhere out in the apartment's main quarters, Dorothy's voice whispered, "Can I come in?"

With her patience and her nerves stretched almost to breaking point, Elphaba would have gladly told the girl to leave her alone; she'd have opened the door just for the opportunity to scream the words in her face – after all, the girl didn't know that magic didn't work in here yet, did she? It'd be easy enough to intimidate her, if only to earn a few precious hours of silence. But at the last moment, just as she was crossing the room towards the door with her fists clenched and her teeth gritted, all the fight went out of her – for somewhere in the growing cloud of nagging thoughts that her mind was immersed in, a particularly horrible one emerged: _the Mentor's already decided your fate,_ it said. _They're going to keep you here for the rest of your life, and nothing you say will do anything to stop that because the guards are forbidden to speak to you _or_ listen to you. And Dorothy is going to be the only human contact you're allowed for the rest of your pathetic life. From now on, she's the only friend you've got, because you've killed all the others – and if they find out she's not allied with you, or that you might hurt her, they'll take her away and leave you here alone with nothing but your grief for company._

A vision of the future briefly flickered into her mind's eye, a glimpse of the room perhaps thirty years later – filthy, polluted with dirty dishes and rotting food scraps, the walls smeared with bloody handprints. And through it all, Elphaba's older self wandered in a daze, hair greying, eyes wide and unfocussed, wrists swathed in blood-soaked bandages. But she wasn't alone. In every room she entered, the dead and the worse-than-dead awaited her: behind the coach, the withered shape of a goat cowered and bleated unintelligently, occasionally glancing up at her with eyes that held an ever-so-subtle glint of reproachfulness; Boq stood in the corner, metal limbs far too rusted to move, his sorrowful eyes fixed upon the warped, shrunken heart that lay in his corroded hands; Nessa, torso and legs crushed to pulp, lay on the floor in a bloody heap and tearfully begged for Elphaba to help her up; Fiyero dangled from a rope outside the window, perpetually out of reach, still mobile enough to smear "WHERE WERE YOU" on the glass with a bloodied, broken hand; and Glinda, lying on the table in the same sorry state as the Empress' victims seen in the photographs – naked, slit open from neck to navel, her skull gaping open and her brains exposed to the air. _"I feel fine,"_ Glinda said placidly, a beatific smile gracing her now-cadaverous features. _"It didn't even hurt. You should try it, Elphie; it'll make you feel so much better about everything. You can use your fingernails if you like, and once you're finished, we'll be together just like we always wanted –"_

Hurling herself out of her imagination and back into the real world as quickly as she could, Elphaba opened the door in almost blind panic. "Hello?!" she screamed, voice on the edge of hysteria.

There was a sheepish pause, as the echoes died away; Dorothy took a very cautious step back from the door, and Chistery took shelter behind the kitchen counter.

"Sorry," Elphaba mumbled. "Don't know what came over me there."

Dorothy blinked. "Are you alright?'

_Aha. Words I'd never thought I'd hear you say at all, let alone twice._ "Fine," she said out loud. "Just a little... distracted."

Another long and slightly worried pause followed; Dorothy appeared to be plucking up her courage for something. Eventually, she said, "I heard you crying a minute ago."

Silence. After all, what could she possibly say to that?

"Was it something the Mentor said?"

Elphaba nodded silently.

"... Do you want to talk about it?'

"What's there to talk about, and more to the point, does it really matter that much to you?"

"You were the one who told me that I never bothered to question anything," the girl said, a touch defensively.

"True enough," Elphaba sighed. "If you're really interested, you might as well come in and have a seat. You too, Chistery."

Hands clasped agitatedly behind her back, Dorothy tiptoed into the room and sat down on the bed, Chistery knuckling after her. Then, after perhaps thirty seconds of gathering her thoughts, Elphaba finally announced, "I've already told you that they're keeping us under house arrest... but it's worse than that. Do you remember that friend of mine I mentioned?"

There was another pause, as Dorothy visibly tried and failed to conceal her incredulity at the idea of the Wicked Witch of the West having friends. "Back on the airship? Yes, I think so."

Elphaba briefly contemplated just giving in and explaining everything to the girl: her relationship with Glinda, the Wizard's true nature, her rebellion against Oz, the conversation she'd had with the Mentor and the story behind this madhouse world; even if she didn't believe a word of it, the chance to at least voice her frustrations and grievances would be a welcome change if nothing else. But in the end she decided against it, partly out of exhaustion but mostly because she didn't want to finish off the evening with yet another shouting match. "From what this Great Mentor tells me, my friend is right in the middle of Unbridled Radiance and there's a very good chance that she's been caught... in fact, the Mentor think that she's already dead. And even if she isn't, I can't do a thing to help her from here."

"But can't you just cast a spell or-"

Biting back an expletive, she detailed the nullification of her magical powers as quickly as possible. Once she was finished, Dorothy remained silent for a while – as if trying to think of a response that wouldn't set off Elphaba's temper; but eventually, she asked, "What was she like?" Her eyes widened, and she hastily amended, "What's she like? What's her name?"

For the second time in as many minutes, Elphaba considered just admitting that Glinda was her best friend (_is,_ she told herself, _not __**was**_) and unveiling all the tawdry old secrets. But then apathy set in, and all she said was, "You wouldn't know her."

"Would it matter if I did or didn't?"

"Would it matter if I told you?" Elphaba shot back.

"Please?" Dorothy wheedled. "If you're afraid I'll tell the Wizard when we get back to Oz, I swear you've got nothing to worry about; you don't have to tell me her name or even what she looks like – just who she is. Besides, you never know - telling me might just make you feel better."

Elphaba rolled her eyes; after dealing with the girl's near-constant fear of just about everything that moved for the last few hours, she'd almost forgotten just how unbelievably naive she could be; then again, Dorothy was still a child, so that wasn't exactly surprising. But in all honesty, she didn't have the heart to tell her that the chances of getting back to Oz were low even _before_ they'd ended up detained and under house arrest in the nerve centre of a heavily fortified city – or that Kansas might just be out of her reach as well. And perhaps, if nothing else, a conversation might just make the time pass a little quicker; so, sitting down on the bed next to Dorothy, she thought of the best way to explain her missing friend.

"She... she's..." Elphaba took a deep breath, and tried again. But the words didn't want to be said; the possibility of Glinda being captured or executed froze them in place and they died in her throat. Giving herself a little shake of exasperation, she tried one last time: "She's my opposite in almost every way," she said at last. "Light-hearted, bubbly, outgoing, popular... and a bit of a ditz at times, I hate to admit. We couldn't stand each other at first: opposite personalities clashed too much, you see – I thought she was a shallow, self-important bimbo who spent so much money on shoes that she'd be broke by the end of the month, and she thought I was a freak _and_ a snob who cared too much about work or study to really fit in anyway." The words were emerging faster now; somewhere inside her mind, a floodgate had been opened. "But that was in the early days; back then, we did everything we possibly could to avoid sharing the same space for longer than necessary – which meant that neither of us learned much about each other during those first months. And then everything changed: I learned that, under all the gloss and the fashion, she actually had a kind heart; and she learned that I..." She paused; she couldn't talk about that now – her throat was beginning to freeze again. "We developed a trust... and we went out of our way to help each other; she kept me company when my sister was out of reach, and I helped her with work. We even went so far as to entrust each other with our deepest secrets. For the next month or two, we were the closest of friends; and then... and then it almost fell apart."

"What happened?"

"I took a path in life that she couldn't follow. From there, we rarely saw each other; the second-last time we met, we argued. The _last_ time we met was just before the portal opened at Kiamo Ko – and that's how we ended up here, and how we ended up getting separated."

As Dorothy considered this, Chistery put a furry hand on Elphaba's shoulder, and hooted sympathetically; in spite of herself, Elphaba smiled. _At least I have _one_ friend left,_ she thought.

"Do you have anything to remember her by?" Dorothy asked suddenly.

Without saying a word, Elphaba took her hat off – and was immediately rewarded with a look of utter astonishment from Dorothy. "I had to get it from _somewhere_," she remarked, almost too amused to be melancholy. "And when you have to spend your adult life on the run and effectively homeless, you learn very quickly to keep your most precious belongings close by or risk losing them. And when you're separated from the people you love, you learn to treasure what little of them you manage to keep." She thought of the little green bottle, safely concealed in a pocket of her cloak as it was, and of the many times she'd almost lost it while hurrying to escape a squad of guards. Then she thought about the Ruby Slippers, and suddenly what little humour remained in the room evaporated.

"And that's why you wanted the Ruby Slippers," said Dorothy - as if she'd read Elphaba's mind – and a look of utter wretchedness crossed her face. "Were they really the only things you had to remember her by?" she asked, in a voice so small it was almost microscopic.

"The only things I had to remember her _happiness_ by," Elphaba clarified. She wanted to stop there, but something in the guilt-stricken look on Dorothy's face made her continue: "... and I needed to remember a time when I'd been there for her... or at least, a time when I _tried_ to be there_. _The spell I placed on the slippers allowed her to walk, you see; I thought it was the best thing I could have possibly done for her – I even thought that she'd be able to live a longer, happier life... and then you showed up."

Dorothy cringed. "I'm sorry," she whispered. "I'll get them back somehow. I'll get them back. I'm so sorry," she added unnecessarily.

"Don't be," Elphaba sighed. "You're not the one keeping them from me at the moment, are you?"

_But you're the one the Hellion wants,_ she thought bitterly. _I __**hate**__ having principles. Of course, even if I didn't, I'd still be trapped in here with no way of handing the girl over._

"What about you?" she continued. "Do you have something to remember _your_ family by?"

To her surprise, Dorothy nodded: from the pocket of her dress, she held out a battered and slightly crumpled photograph; standing in front of a run-down looking farmhouse, Dorothy and a couple old enough to be her parents posed for the cameraman, the man grinning from behind a fledgling beard, the woman looking on the verge of laughter. Though both looked worn down and rugged from years of hard labour, the spark of happiness in their expressions was startling by comparison; on the other hand, Dorothy looked as childishly carefree as she had in Munchkinland just before Elphaba had arrived on the scene, perhaps even more so – not surprising, considering it predated her arrival in Oz.

"I took this from the house just before I left Munchkinland," Dorothy explained. "It's of me and my Aunt Em and Uncle Henry. I... I wasn't sure if I'd ever get to see them again, so I decided to hang on to it. I shouldn't need it, though, right?" she asked tentatively. "I mean, the Mentor should be able to send us home... shouldn't she?"

_Damn it, child: one minute you're almost competent, the next you're worse than Glinda with a hangover._

Somewhere in the distance, a clock chimed gently; it was now eight o'clock. "That reminds me," said Dorothy, clearly eager to change the subject. "The guards said we can order dinner around this time if we like. Do you want anything or –"

"I'm not really hungry," Elphaba lied. "I think I'll be better off getting some rest."

Thanks to the chaos at Kiamo Ko, she'd missed out on breakfast _and_ lunch, and after only a few slices of cake at the victory party, she was in the mood to eat a horse – hooves and all, provided it was non-sentient. But at present, she simply wasn't up to spending dinnertime getting stared at for every vaguely human foible she made the mistake of demonstrating; and eating dinner alone in her room might just plunge the already miserable evening into the lowest depths of cataclysmic depression. All things considered, it'd be better for all parties concerned if she went straight to bed and slept through the next few decades of her inevitable life sentence; in fact, she was already going through the motions without realizing it – taking the cushions off the bed, drawing back the covers...

"Fair enough," Dorothy went on; she was obviously disappointed that she wouldn't get the chance to ask any more questions that evening, but at least she had the decency to pretend otherwise. "I'll try not to make too much noise or... wait a minute, what's _that?"_

Elphaba followed her gaze, and saw, lying just under the neatly-folded blanket, a small parcel wrapped in glossy black paper and tied with green satin ribbons. Affixed to its side, a small envelope cheerily proclaimed it to be addressed _"To the Wicked Witch of the West; with hugs and kisses from An Old Friend (or maybe not)."_

"Well," she said bemusedly, "This is either a very bad joke or a bomb. Possibly both."

"But why do you think it's a bomb?"

"Pattern recognition: it's been that kind of day, really."

Pausing only to hastily feel the parcel for anything that might double as an explosive, she then went about unwrapping it; thankfully, the contents were largely harmless: a pot of ink, a small parchment scroll, a folded map of various territories (including Unbridled Radiance, No-Man's Land, and the Deviant Nations), and oddly enough, a glass phial containing a single strand of blonde hair. At first, Elphaba wasn't sure what any of it meant; then she unfurled the scroll and found scrawled on it a series of a arcane words that could have only been copied from the Grimmerie. Suddenly excited, she opened the envelope that had arrived with the package, and found a small handwritten note that Dorothy peered over her shoulder to read:

_Dear Miss Thropp_

_The Great Mentor doubts your friend's chances of surviving her time alone in Unbridled Radiance; having been witness to the sheer dumb luck that so often protected her in the days prior to her acquiring a gift for combat magic, _I _do not. _

_The spell inscribed on the scroll is a potent means of locating and tracking individuals over great distances; it will require a map, ink, and a sample of the target's body. All have been provided for you – complete with a single hair, found on your clothes during the identity test and confirmed to belong to your friend. Every four hours, the magicians keeping your power suppressed will change shifts, starting at midnight; there will be a two minute interval as the next magician in line begins casting, during which time you can use the tracking spell. It is also advised that you also use one of these intervals to remove the bars from the windows._

_As for who I am and why I trust you, we can answer those questions when it comes time to determine who _you_ are. _

_Sincerely,_

_An Unmet Friend_

_PS: Look under the bed._

In perfect unison, Elphaba and Dorothy peered under the bed: there, sitting right in the middle of the floor beneath the mattress, was an old but serviceable broomstick. As she reached out to grab it, Elphaba could hear herself – as if from miles away – muttering "Please don't let this be a joke. Give me just _one_ even break, and please let this be real..."

And then her right hand closed around the handle: immediately, she felt the enchantments placed upon it, even through the nullifying haze that surrounded the apartment, and her heart leapt with joy as the familiar promise of flight crackled into the forefront of her mind.

Suddenly, she was laughing. She knew that this might very well be a trap, perhaps an assassination attempt waiting to happen, or maybe just the Great Mentor's way of getting enough incriminating evidence to have Elphaba in front of a firing squad. And even if it wasn't, she was also well aware of the possibility that Glinda might be too far out of reach, hidden from magical attempts at locating her, or just imprisoned somewhere so well-protected that trying to mount a rescue might end up killing them both. She could guess at just about everything that could probably go wrong: the spell might not work, the hair might lead her to the wrong person, the broom might be jinxed to fail the moment she tried to fly, or the border defences would be ready and waiting to shoot her down. None of it mattered – not even the fact that she'd have to wait until midnight to actually cast the spell –, because now that she had the chance to fly within reach once again, all the fears and doubts that had arrived to plague her somehow couldn't touch her anymore; she was flying out of their reach, if only figuratively speaking. For the next minute, she leaned against the wall and guffawed, her voice rising from tentative giggling to the familiar peals of maniacal laughter that had sent the people of Oz scurrying for cover; finally, the cackling dwindled to a halt and left her standing there aglow with triumph, a wide and irrepressible grin etched on her face.

Then, she realized that Dorothy was staring at her again.

"Sorry," she said, barely stopping herself from cracking up all over again. "I, uh... I got a little carried away there."

If anything, Dorothy looked even astonished (though admittedly, even Elphaba had never thought she'd find herself apologizing to the girl). "So this means you can save your friend?" she asked hesitantly.

"Well, it probably won't be as simple as that, but... yes I think that's something that might just be happening at some point next morning." She giggled deliriously, and staggered towards the front door of the apartment; with her mood now soaring once again and another three and a quarter hours until the spell could be cast, she was in the mood to admit to being hungry and order some dinner.

As she hollered for the guard's attention, she pondered the identity of the "friend" who'd sent her the spell components and broomstick. The aliases that had been used - "An old friend (or maybe not)" and "an unmet friend" - seemed oddly specific; given that this was a world somehow derived from Oz, the writer might actually be an alternate version of someone she'd known. So, with a range of infinite possibilities in mind, who could it be? Doctor Dillamond? Fiyero? Nessa? Perhaps it might actually be Glinda/The Great Mentor after all, but if so, why?

One way or another, some wild and slightly delusional part of Elphaba's brain told her that she was going to have a lot of fun finding out.

* * *

"Do you think they've gone yet?"

"No, I can still see the lights from here. They haven't turned back yet. In fact, I think they're heading right for us this time."

"Damn. Sorry, Lion."

Without changing his expression (which had remained uniformly miserable over the last half an hour) The Cowardly Lion gently lowered himself to his haunches, pressed his face to the dirt and groaned quietly.

Travelling through the forest hadn't nearly been easy as Boq had originally hoped: once they'd lost the Hellion's trail, they'd found themselves getting lost very quickly; after their attempts at finding a path back to the grasslands had come to nothing, they'd continued walking as if nothing had changed – after all, what else _could_ they do? Even if they could make their way back to their starting point, they'd still be no closer to tracking down the Hellion, Dorothy, or Elphaba; at least out here, they had a very vague and distant chance of finding one of them.

Unfortunately, someone had found them first: perhaps two hours after they'd entered the forest, a squad of brilliantly-uniformed soldiers had abseiled from the treetops and opened fire on them; none of them had bothered to explain why they were attacking, or even say much apart from "Irredeemables!" and "Deviant scum!" They'd just taken aim and pelted them with bullets; and when the three of them had fled, the soldiers had quite naturally given chase. At first, the pursuers had seemed to be at a bit of a disadvantage: both Fiyero and Boq were effectively bulletproof and incapable of tiring, and when the Lion's stamina finally wore out, Boq went so far as to pick him up and carry him over his head just as Fiyero was carrying Toto under his arm. Unfortunately, though the soldiers couldn't easily catch up with them, it turned out they were more than capable of outnumbering _and_ outpositioning them: another squad had swept in from the left barely an hour after the first ambush, herding the three back into the first squad's approach; and when they'd tried to escape to the north, another squad had arrived to try and surround them once and for all, and it had only been through a mad berserk rampage on the part of the Tin Man that they'd managed to punch through the advancing wall of gunmen.

Now it was night-time, and the three of them were hunched in a shallow ditch perhaps five or six miles away from the ambush point; with the forest around them plunged into darkness and the terrain being so wild as to be impassable without sunlight, they'd decided to seek shelter and wait until morning. Unfortunately, the soldiers were armed with searchlights, and didn't seem in the mood to call off their search until the morning; indeed, they were less than thirty feet away and their lights were currently pointed almost right at the ditch, forcing the three of them to hunch down to avoid being seen. Any minute now, they'd find them, and judging by the angry shouts they didn't seem in the mood to conduct an arrest or to show mercy.

Boq would certainly try to fight them off; his metal body and piston-powered muscles had given him a confidence that his younger self had never possessed. Even the Lion would be able to fight if the situation was dire enough to make him forget his neuroses. But Fiyero... well, he might _try_ to fight, but could he really manage anything worthwhile? Unlike Boq, his immortality had made him oddly fragile: his arms were too flimsy to throw a punch or wrestle a weapon out of someone's hands; maybe if he had a gun or a knife, he might be able to put up some kind a struggle, but other than that...

Fiyero shook his head and hoped that Toto wouldn't pick this as an appropriate time to bark, and if Elphaba _was_ somewhere out in the wilderness, that she'd somehow been able to avoid the soldiers, the Hellion, and whatever other hazards this insane asylum of a countryside could throw at her. As for Dorothy, he'd just have to hope that Elphaba was in the mood to defend the girl... and that he'd have the chance to see both of them again – alive and healthy.

"Do you think there's any chance of getting away if we start running right now?' the Lion whispered.

"Well, they'd probably hear us," Fiyero replied. "The trees are too thick to travel through most of it. We might be able to find our way through that pathway on the left quietly enough if we had a torch... and none of them noticed the light."

"And we don't end up setting something on fire," grumbled Boq. "They'd probably notice _that_, if you ask m-"

"**Am **_I_ interrupting _any_THING?"

There was a nerve-wracking silence, as the three of them looked up in terror at the enormous six-armed shape towering over them. Even with half of her body concealed by the forest, there was no mistaking the distinctive figure of the Hellion – or the metallic stench of blood that surrounded her. Worse still, she was hovering right in front of the suggested escape route, her long arms wrapped thickly around the front-most trees of the passage and almost completely blocking the way; Fiyero didn't need to glance in the opposite direction to know that the only way of escaping _her_ would be to head to their immediate right, out of the ditch and into the hunting party's line of fire.

At that point, time ceased to exist: the three of them might have sat there for years, paralysed under the Hellion's baleful stare, even though it couldn't have been for more than a few seconds. The horrified silence continued, growing thicker and thicker until it drowned out not only the familiar hoots and howls of the forest wildlife but even the distant shouts from the approaching soldiers. Fiyero, Boq and the Lion remained frozen in place, each of them tense and ready to move: Boq was slowly bringing his axe into position, fully prepared to charge at the Hellion before it could attack; the Lion looked torn between either joining the attack or running for his life; Fiyero was wondering if there'd be any chance of trying to draw the soldiers into a fight with the Hellion, giving them some time to escape in the process. But somehow, he could tell just by a few quickly exchanged glances that all of them were thinking the same thing: _What would be more painful; trying to attack perhaps thirty armed soldiers head-on, or trying to attack the monster with an interest in taking prisoners?_

But it was the Hellion who moved first – and not in the way they'd expected: instead of pouncing on them, she swooped to their right with an eerie giggle, circling around the ditch until she was right between them and the oncoming soldiers. She turned in their direction just long enough to put a talonlike index finger to her smirking, skinless lips in the universal gesture for "shhh"; then, in a blur of flickering afterimages, she turned and hovered silently towards the clearing where the soldiers had gathered.

A moment later, the first scream rang out.

In near-perfect unison, the lights swung wildly away from the ditch and towards the crimson blur that the Hellion had become; immediately, the soldiers opened fire, but it was clear that the Hellion had the advantage: not only did she know the terrain better and moved almost instantly from shadow to shadow, but on the few occasions when the frantic gunman managed to hit the target, there didn't seem to be much evidence that the Hellion was wounded or even slowed. In a matter of seconds, the once-orderly platoon dissolved into a fracas of gunfire, exploding grenades, screams, and drunkenly-swinging searchlights.

With most of the lights being broken or pointed the wrong way, Fiyero's view of the carnage was reduced to the brief glimpses he was afforded when a searchlight moved in the right direction, or a grenade exploded, or something caught on fire. He saw men breaking rank and running for cover as thick purple tendrils rippled across the ground after them, licking their heels with daggerlike tongues; he saw an explosion send a man flying through the air to land with a sickening crunch against the trunk of a tree; he saw a particularly desperate-looking soldier try to bayonet the Hellion, only to be snatched off his feet by all six of her limbs and ripped to pieces; he saw colourful magical flames ignite a cluster of people who'd made the mistake of standing too close together, leaving them to stagger blindly into the forest as their flesh dissolved; he saw, one after the other, perhaps five men shouting desperately into a handheld machine, each one trying to call for help; and perhaps worst of all, he saw a man caught in the act of trying to crawl away from the advancing Hellion, weeping hysterically and pressing a revolver to the side of his head – only to be rewarded with the dull _click_ of an empty chamber.

And through it all, over the noise of battle and the agonized screaming and the pleas for mercy, the Hellion's voice could be clearly heard: "_Not_ **suitable**. NO. _No._**Per**_**haps**_**. **No. HopeLESSLY **un****interesting. **_Perhaps_ you? _Yes, yes, _**I can PICTURE** _you __**as a doll**__ even _now; come closer, _**join**__ my _GLORIOUS **collection**..."

It was hard to tell how long the massacre lasted, but it couldn't have been for much longer than a minute or two at the most; eventually, however, the last scream finally died away and the forest once again fell silent. Then, quite unexpectedly, a handheld searchlight rolled over the edge of the ditch and landed at Boq's feet; switching his axe to his left hand, he picked up the light and pointed it in the general direction of the clearing – only to find himself once again staring up at the Hellion.

This time, however, she wasn't alone: tucked under her arms were four battered-looking soldiers, alive but unconscious. Fiyero tried not to look too closely at them, but couldn't stop himself from seeing the elements that the Hellion had been so careful to select: they were fresh-faced young men with clean-shaven cheeks and boyish casts to their features; they probably couldn't be much older than eighteen or nineteen years of age, and none of them higher than the rank of corporal – despite the ostentatious uniforms. In fact, the more Fiyero looked at them, the more he found himself reminded of his friends among the guard, back when he'd still been a captain; most of them hadn't really been fanatics when push came to shove, just overconfident boys anxious to earn a paycheck and impress someone – maybe their parents, maybe their superiors, maybe even a girlfriend. And now here they were, dangling from the arms of a monster and powerless to do anything about it.

"**I**_ got_ what **I **CAME for," she gloated. "**What the Hellion wants, the Hellion takes. **_Enough_ **to tide ****ME** over _until_ The** Green Girl** _returns_ WHAT **SHE **_**STOLE**__ from_ me." She laughed, her distorted voice echoing unpleasantly against the trees around her. **"PER**_**haps**_you'll _help_ me **in **_**that **__**reg**_**ard, **soon_..."_

One of the soldiers coughed, and his eyes flickered open; he immediately began to struggle, trying and failing to escape from the iron grip around his waist. He turned to Fiyero and the others, apparently no longer caring that he'd been assigned the job of hunting them down over the last few miles; "Kill me," he whimpered. His blue eyes were wide with terror, his round, freckled face an ashen grey. "Please, kill me, don't let her take me, oh sweet Empress I'm sorry please kill me kill me ki-"

The Hellion's upper-right hand suddenly clamped over the back of his head: instantly, the soldier went limp, his body suddenly as loose and boneless as a ragdoll. "_Hush_ NOW, **sweet little thing,"** the Hellion crooned, stroking the man's hair and leaving thick trails of blood through it. "**You'll** _be_ so MUCH happier _**AS**__ a_ **doll...****" **

She turned back to the horrified onlookers. "_You_ **won't be **DIST_**URBED**_ any _further_ _to__night_," she whispered. "_So_, **until** NEXT TIME, _farewell_. Oh, and _**when**_ YOU pass **by ****the **_**silver**_** lakes** of No Man's Land, do _say_ HELLO to the **Mistress of Mirrors **from _me_; she's **been** _SO _LONELY _of_ **late** **I **hear** tell she** _**visits**_ the **dollhouse** in **Exemplar** for _a_ friend. Poor, _sweet_ Reflection. _Oh_ **well**, you'll cheer _her_ UP, won't you? _Of course you will._ SWEET_dreams__, _**sweet dolls**_!"_

Then she was gone, leaving Boq's searchlight pointed directly at the wreckage she'd left in her wake. Not for the first time since his transformation, Fiyero was very glad that it was no longer possible for him to vomit, for the sight would have driven even the strongest stomach to nausea: of the thirty soldiers that had been in the area a few minutes ago, only six of their dead were intact enough to be classified as bodies; the rest had been pulverized so thoroughly there was precious little to identify them as human remains. There were a few signs here and there, a petrified hand protruding from a heap of charcoal and ashes, or maybe a severed head sitting atop a small mountain of shredded flesh, but that was about it. Blood was everywhere, splattered against the trees and pooling on the ground where it had fallen too thickly for the soil to absorb; at one point, he thought he could see what looked like _faces_ bobbing inside those small lakes, and eyes staring blindly out of the red murk, but Boq thankfully swung the light away from them before he could see any more than he wanted. And decorating the branches of the nearby trees were things that Fiyero's brain initially refused to identify: some of them looked like tattered white bedsheets; others looked like strings of pinkish tinsel; there were even a few objects resembling white clothes-pegs embedded in the trunks of these trees.

There was a long and awkward silence, as the three of them considered the bloodbath in front of them; the Lion was the first to break it. "There is no way in _hell_ I'm sleeping anywhere near that," he said firmly. "And I'm not planning on spending another minute within spitting distance of someone who can do that either."

"Agreed," said Boq hoarsely.

"Likewise," Fiyero concurred.

Toto barked in the affirmative, leaving the decision mercifully unanimous. As one, they turned in the direction of their original exit and marched off into the night. This time, however, they stayed silent – just in case something tried to follow them.

* * *

_Halfway along the corridor, Elphaba stops to lean against the wall. She's trembling worse than ever now, a cold sweat layers her forehead, and her breathing is starting to accelerate again. The orderlies are already in motion, clearly intent on getting her moving again, but Glinda gets there first; she can immediately tell this is more than just a nervous quaver, because Elphaba's almost hyperventilating by now. "I can't do this," she was whispering, "I can't do this, I can't do this..."_

"_Yes you can," Glinda murmurs, trying to keep her voice low enough for the orderlies not to hear. "Everything's going to be okay. You heard what Morrible said: once the spell's been cast, you'll have a fresh start and you'll never have to worry about the green skin ever again."_

"_But is it worth it? Do you think I'll ever be able to live with myself afterwards?"_

"_Elphie, you'll be incarceritified for life if you don't take this chance! You'll die in prison if you refuse the offer now."_

_She laughs bitterly at this. "Morrible clearly didn't tell you about the possibility that they might miscast the spell and accidentally kill me – assuming that this isn't just a disguised assassination attempt and a miscast is exactly what they're hoping for."_

"_But that's not what's frightening you, is it? What do you really have to lose by going in there, sitting down for a few minutes and letting them cast the spell?"_

"_Oh, I don't know," Elphaba snaps, a ghost of her old sarcasm briefly rising to her surface. "Maybe my principles. What little's left of my self-respect. My sanity... and my __**self**__," she adds quietly._

_Glinda winces involuntarily: another sign that the events of the last few months had come so very close to destroying her friend is rearing its ugly head; a year ago, she'd have jumped at the chance to be normal – and even after starting her rebellion, she might have been willing to take the chance if it meant bringing down the Wizard. Now, she's a shadow of her former self, her confidence in tatters and her self-esteem lying in ruins. Of course, that's hardly the worst thing on the horizon: outside their conversation, the orderlies are loading their sidearms and the doctor waiting by the surgery door looks almost on the verge of giving the order to fire; if they're forced to restrain "the patient" now, Morrible might just cancel the entire project and leave Elphaba to rot in an improvised cell at the bottom of a mineshaft. If Glinda wants this to go according to plan, or indeed to see Elphaba ever again, she's going to have to press the issue. At the instance of both Morrible and her own desperate need to see this life-saving measure succeed, she's prepared a rough script (something she'd never thought she'd ever have to do at all, let alone for this sort of occasion) for what to say if anything went wrong, but saying it out loud is even harder than she'd expected._

"_You once told me that you'd be willing to do anything to stop the Wizard and save the Animals," she hisses, _just _managing to sound appropriately furious; "You'll be able to do that once you've been degreenified. Don't you want that? Or when you said "anything," did you really mean "anything that's comfortable by my standards"? What matters more to you: your self-respect, or the lives of every Animal in Oz?"_

_Elphaba sighs deeply."You always were a heartbreaker, Glinda," she says quietly – the faintest hint of reproach in her voice._

_Then, without another word, she pushes away from the wall and continues the long march down the corridor; as she does so, Glinda gets a brief but terrible look at the expression on Elphaba's face: instead of the familiar look of determination she'd hoped to see, Elphaba now wears a sickly, helpless-looking grimace. _

_Seconds later, she reaches the open door of the surgery: in the room beyond, Morrible is waiting for her, now dressed in a crisp white surgical gown and accompanied by a small horde of assistants – some of them magical experts, others medical professionals. Together, they are preparing to cast the spell: apparently, it's not nearly as simple as chanting the words of the spell anymore, not with the sheer number of countermeasures demanded of this operation; after having almost lost her to first an unintended rebellion and then to an attempt at retrieving her, the Wizard doesn't want to take too many chances with his investment's life._

_As the assistants move to close the door, Elphaba manages one last look over her shoulder in Glinda's direction; she still looks hurt, but at least most of the reproachfulness in her gaze is gone. Now, she just looks sad and resigned, as she takes a deep breath and silently mouths the words "Goodbye." _

_Then the door slams shut._

_A few of Glinda's aides remind her that she'll be expected back at the palace soon, and quietly urge her to leave; she ignores them: the possibility that something might go wrong has just about rooted her to the spot... but then again, she wouldn't leave even if she could; she'd all but forced Elphie into this – the most she could do was be here for her when the time came to help her recover._

_From behind the thick door, there's a faint but recognizable sound of heavy equipment being gently hauled into place, and the sound of Morrible whispering orders to the assistants, most of them in technical jargon so complicated that Glinda can't even begin to guess at what they meant. But clearly audible over even these noises is Elphaba's breathing; it's no longer the frantic hyperventilation that she heard a moment ago, but there's still a noticeable tremor there – particularly when Morrible orders her to disrobe and stand in the harness at the centre of the room._

_A familiar series of clicks, whirrs and buzzes can be heard now; Glinda has witnessed these noises many times during her stay in the hospital, usually accompanying the more invasive check-ups. This time, it was presumably the assistants slowly going about connecting their intricate machines to Elphaba's body. For the most part, she suffers in silence, only reacting with the occasional wince or shudder of pain; it's not until a minute or two into the procedure that she finally asks, "Are all these – ouch – needles really necessary?"_

"_In a word, yes," said Morrible. "This isn't any ordinary spell, Miss Elphaba; it's a combinatification of four very different magical techniques contained within the Grimmerie, with assistance from these devices being temporarily implanted on your person... and these surgeons over here. We need to be prepared for almost anything. The needles in your spine draw off excess thaumaturgical current; hopefully, they will be enough to shield you from any surges of energy should something go wrong."_

"_I take it that it's also to prevent my powers from going wild – or just to keep me from using them at all, yes?_

"_As I said, we need to be prepared for almost anything."_

"_And the vat over there?"_

"_That's the skin-tone we're currently preparing to graft."_

"_Hang on a minute... I've had a bit of time to study the Grimmerie while I was on the run, and I think I know what you're trying to do: you're merging a spell to drain pigmentation with a spell for chameleonic mimicry."_

"_Familiar with them, are you?"_

"_I was _considering_ using the first one on myself," Elphaba remarked testily. "Trouble is, it doesn't work very well on living things: it works perfectly well on inanimate objects, but when I experimented on flowers and mice, it ended up killing almost every single test subject. How exactly are you planning on keeping me alive? What's the third spell you're planning to use?"_

"_Are you familiar with page 487 of this book, Miss Thropp?"_

_There's a shocked pause. "Ah," said Elphaba quietly; there's a very subtle note of horror in her voice. "So, you're going to... remove it before you alter it. The fifth spell is the antibiotic barrier, then. That's actually... a very inspired solution."_

"_I'm flatterated you think so: it took several months to translate, merge and formulatify, especially the means of allowing you to survive the trauma."_

_Elphaba swallows hard. "This is really going to hurt, isn't it?"_

"_Very likely. Now, if I could have silence in the operating theatre..."_

_A hush descends upon the room; Glinda is standing right next to the door by now. She's anxious to listen in on what's happening – in part because she isn't entirely certain as to what might be about to happen next; in the initial discussion, Morrible had been worryingly vague about how the procedure of degreenifying Elphaba was supposed to work, and refused to elaborate on the precise methods used when Glinda got around to actually asking; even the conversation she's just eavesdropped on doesn't explain that much._

_Then, the chanting slowly begins: unlike the eerie, fluid pronunciation of Elphaba's spells, Morrible sounds coarse and businesslike, without any kind of flourish and artistry. But there's power behind those words – even Glinda can't help but notice the magic rippling across the room in response to the harsh spellcraft._

_And suddenly, the incantation is briefly drowned out by a loud, wet __**RRRRRRRIP.**_

_The chant continues unabated as the noise fades, but there's a curious sound in the background, now – a strange _dripping_ sound, punctuated by the muffled expletives of the attending surgeons. But as the seconds drag by, Glinda realizes that it's not what she's hearing that's so unusual, but what she _isn't_ hearing: Elphaba's breathing. For some reason, her friend is now completely silent. For a moment, Glinda's heart lurches with sudden alarm – what if she's in shock or unconscious? What if the treatment has actually _killed_ her? But then she thinks for a moment and realizes that she can still hear the spell being cast – something that probably would have ground to a halt if their patient had died._

_So, Glinda presses her ear to the door, hoping to hear even the slightest whisper of breath from beyond. Moments later, a deafening scream from within sends her lurching backward in fright: _she was holding her breath_, she realizes as her hands slam down hard over her ears. _She was holding her breath and waiting to scream.

_Elphaba is screaming in agony, and isn't showing any sign of stopping: there's no attempt at calling for help or begging Morrible to stop – it's just a solid wave of noise rippling out of the operating theatre, rattling doors, shattering windows and sending nurses and orderlies scurrying for cover._

_And Morrible just keeps on chanting, Elphaba keeps screaming, and suddenly the cacophony is joined by a sudden roar of metal grinding against metal..._

Emerging from sleep like a drowning swimmer, Glinda inhaled deeply and tried to sit up and open her eyes – without much success; the frost was still at work beneath her skin, keeping her body restrained and preserved. The most she could do was lie there, take deep breaths, and wait as the memories gently trickled back into her head – and immediately regret it.

Quite apart from the fact that she was still trapped in what could only be her own private corner of hell, she was still waiting to be vivisected, and whatever the hell _that_ was, it didn't sound good. But then, anything that required you to be completely paralysed and left to freeze for the next few hours before it took place was probably bad on general principle. And now, as far as she could tell by the feel of the materials her frozen fingers rested on, she'd been moved from the gurney and onto what felt like a metal table – steel, if the ice-cold surface was any evidence; she couldn't guess at why, but Glinda had a sneaking feeling that it could only mean trouble.

And then she heard footsteps on the tiled floor, and realized that she wasn't alone in the room anymore; someone was pacing around the table, humming a nonexistent tune to himself... and judging by the metallic sounds, he was _sharpening _something. A knife, possibly.

The words "The surgeon may cut you open" echoed in and out of Glinda's brain, and an ice-cold droplet of fear trickled down her spine to land at the very pit of her stomach. Somewhere in the very back of her skull, a desperate little voice tried to convince her that this was all a misunderstanding, and she was going to be given an injection that would allow her to sit up and realize that everyone was playing an elaborate practical joke, and they'd all laugh and she would hug Elphaba in sheer relief and everything would be alright. The little voice was promptly told to stop talking nonsense, whereupon it curled into a ball and pathetically suggested that this might all just be a bad dream. And meanwhile, the steps had finally slowed to halt right next to Glinda's prone body, and her mysterious visitor's humming came to an end.

Somewhere above her, there was a loud _click,_ and a low, dull voice announced, "Subject is female. Appearance suggests early to mid-twenties. Chronological age presently unknown and possibly disguised through glamour, shapeshifting, or surgical magic." The voice paused. Rubber-gloved hands gently lifted Glinda's arms up into the air, as if the speaker was trying to study them under the light; once this was finished, another hand titled her chin from left to right, smoothing her hair back against her scalp and exposing her forehead.

"Initial assessment shows no visible signs of poor health, Distortion or Deviancy," the voice continued. "Apart from slight bruising to the arms and elbows, only visible sign of injury is a penetration wound to the abdomen, with little signs of injury to internal organs. This was likely induced by the frostfang stasis spell; as is common with intended uses of the spell, blood loss has halted and the injury is in no danger of worsening at present. Comparisons with health records show that subject's appearance and physical condition is generally consistent with that of the fugitive known as Glinda Upland, AKA the Great Mentor – albeit records of her condition _prior_ to her betrayal of Unbridled Radiance. The purpose of this evening's vivisection is to identity any signs of disguise, alteration, Distortion or Deviancy, and –if possible – to determine an explanation for the subject's appearance. As per the Empress' commands, this will require only the standard incision across the thorax and abdomen, followed by the study of the chest cavity, internal organs, and the spine. This procedure is only to be extended to the skull and the brain if no conclusive results can be found elsewhere. The Empress has specifically commanded that if the subject's body suffers irreparable damage over the course of this procedure, and no signs of corruption can be found, the subject's psyche is to be incorporated into Paragon and allowed to join the other incorporated souls in blissful contemplation."

_Ahahah,_ Glinda thought, almost hysterically. _They're going to cut me open after all. I'm going to be autopsied while I'm still alive. Haha._

Suddenly, there was the sound of footsteps hurrying down the corridor towards them, before finally stopping just a few feet away to the accompaniment of breathless panting.

"Where have you been?" the dull voice asked, following another loud_ click_. "The vivisection is almost underway."

"Oh... right. S... sorry, I'm late, Doc... Doctor Marsh. I was... detained. Hope I can still assist."

Was it Glinda's imagination, or did the assistant's voice sound familiar?

"Well naturally," Doctor Marsh snapped. "I was just about to begin secondary stage examinations, so you'd best prepare the subject right now: start with her shoes, if you please." He coughed, and the mysterious _click _once again sounded. "Her clothing shows no signs of concealed weaponry," he loudly announced to the thin air, "So further examination is largely unnecessary. Disposal may begin. Her shoes, if you will..."

Cold hands rudely prised Glinda's shoes off her feet; and in spite of all the other competing horrors that had befallen her over the past twenty-four hours, somehow the loss of the gleaming white footwear somehow still managed to jab painfully at her nerves; in fact, she actually found herself trying to scream _Wait a minute, those are my best stylish heels!_ But alas, she couldn't produce anything louder than a vague gargle at the back of her throat, and scant moments later, the deep whoosh of a furnace and the smell of burning fabric signalled the end of Glinda's favourite stilettos.

There was an embarrassed pause.

"The dress, now," Marsh whispered, clearly annoyed at having to actually tell the assistant what to do next.

"Oh, right. Sorry."

Slowly, Glinda was unceremoniously rolled onto her front, allowing the assistant to begin slowly cutting her bodice in half from the neckline down with a pair of scissors. Once again, Glinda found herself wishing that she could scream in frustration: the dress was – _had been –_ another favourite, of the kind she loved to wear on special occasions. And yes, it had been battered, crumpled, crushed, fouled with dirt and now effectively ruined by the blood-streaked tear in the midriff, but it was still one of her very best; from what some citizens had proclaimed, it was this dress that most identified her as the Good Witch, more than her wand, more than her tiara, sometimes even more than her bubble. Now, it was being cut to pieces, soon to be incinerated. She knew that getting so upset over the loss of her clothes after everything else that had happened that day was silly, bordering on pathetic, but ever since she was a child, she'd often resorted to thinking about silly, pathetic things whenever the situation was too dire to focus on the real world. And now, it was almost reassuring after so many hours of worrying and wandering, to let her brain drift for a while and bitch about fashion... and _try_ not to think about what was going to happen next.

The scissors paused perhaps halfway down her back, ice-cold blades resting horribly against her back. The voice of Doctor Marsh didn't: "No visible signs of alteration present in the back, shoulders or scalp," he mused aloud, his gloved hands tousling her hair. "Mage-surgeons employed for the purposes of disguise usually manage to transfer any flaws in their modification to these points to prevent them from being easily noticed in public; I can only presume the surgeon who performed this subject's alteration was very skilled. In fact, if possible I would like to recommend keeping the subject's body as an example of what medical thaumaturgy can accomplish. Are you finished yet?"

"Almost."

"Well hurry up and strip the damn dress off her. I'd like to open the subject's ribcage before the end of the month if it's all the same to-"

There was a loud _squish,_ and for one horrible moment Glinda thought that Marsh had gotten carried away and started cutting into her already. But then she heard the squishing sound again, this time followed by a faint gurgling noise, and realized that she hadn't felt anything on either instance except of course for the familiar chill in the air. Then, there was a muffled thud of something heavy and unwieldy collapsing to the ground, and the assistant's voice muttered, "Pig."

A moment later, the assistant was shaking her. "Come on Glinda," he (or she?) said, gently slapping her face. "Wakey-wakey, eggs n' bakey; we've got to get moving. Oh for godsakes, the frost venom too..." There was a loud clattering from somewhere to her left, and a minute later, the assistant could be heard muttering, "Knew he'd have brought along a vial or two of this. I think I know how to wake you up; it might sting a little, but you know how these things are..."

For the second time in the vivisection, Glinda was rolled over; as soon as she was lying on her back, she felt something square and metallic briefly press against the wound in her stomach – and suddenly, blazing heat flooded her veins. It was though someone had pressed a red-hot iron to her skin - she wound have cried out in pain had she been able to speak; then, the fire swiftly radiated outwards, slowly diluting itself to a soothing warmth as it went. But all too soon, the warmth faded and left Glinda shivering in the polar temperatures of the hospital, which seemed even worse now that she was barefoot and missing half her dress. Instinctively, she drew her arms up to her chest in an attempt to preserve what little warmth remained – and realized she could move again.

Eyes shooting open, she sat bolt upright in a surge of panic-induced energy; instantly, there was a sharp pain in her chest and she slumped backwards with a groan, dazzled by the overhead lights. "Easy, now," warned the assistant; a scrawny arm gently slid under her back and lifted her up again, slowly helping her off the table, back onto her feet. "Frost venom's a nasty thing to recover from. Plus, you've still got that hole in your gut... but at least you're not in danger of bleeding to death."

Groggily thanking him (or her), Glinda looked her saviour up and down. This wasn't what she'd been expecting, to say the very least; after all, if this insane reality really was some kind of private hell or at the very least a nightmare, she'd have thought that the only possible rescue would have come from either Elphaba or Fiyero, perhaps someone else she'd known when she was still alive and awake. This man (or woman) clearly _wasn't_ any of those.

Standing perhaps a few inches shorter than Glinda and dressed in a purloined set of hospital scrubs, her rescuer was lithe and skinny in build, with dark skin, close-cropped black hair and a frowning, downturned mouth. However, most strikingly of all was the fact that, even after a good thirty seconds of puzzling over it, Glinda still couldn't determine this apparition's gender: the features seemed a mix of both male and female, a flat bony chest and heavy jaw offset by full lips and a narrow, slender cast to the face (complete with high, delicate cheekbones). Eventually she gave up on guessing altogether and decided to focus on more immediate problems – among them escaping captivity, trying not to bleed to death... and actually learning who her rescuer was.

"Who are you?" she asked.

The androgynous face briefly wrinkled in confusion. "Fair enough," s/he said at last. "Voices _do_ sound different over intercoms, I suppose. We met a couple of hours ago on the train; I was tinkering with the systems of your sarcophagus, remember?"

Glinda blinked in amazement. _"Omber Landless?"_ she whispered incredulously.

"Omberature Parakeet Landless, at your service. And you're Glinda Upland?"

"Well, yes... but... how did you get out of your coffin? I thought you and the others were still locked up and waiting to be interrogated."

"True enough. As far as I can tell, the rest of my fellow "Nobruvan dignitaries" are still being worked over one-at-a-time by the Studious Interviewers. I'd probably be among them if not for..." A perplexed frown briefly marred his/her features. "I'd like to say I'd managed to get the damn sarcophagus open on my own, but even I can't jimmy the lock on a portable prison without tools and time. No, someone deliberately unlocked it from the outside; whoever it was, I didn't stick around to get a good look at them – just got a disguise and some tools together and ran like hell. I'd have kept running if I hadn't heard your name being wafted about."

"So you came back for me – _just _for me?"

Omber looked a tad sheepish. "Well... I had an escape plan to get out of the complex and hopefully out of this city altogether. I'm not sure where we'll go from there, but we'll cross that bridge when we get to it. Long story short, the plan depended on me having another pair of hands on hand, and I didn't have time to save any of the prisoners. The morgue was the least-guarded room in the entire complex."

"Complex?" Glinda echoed. "Where exactly are we?"

"Not the time for questions, believe me; I'll explain soon, but first we've got to get the hell out of here before people start wondering why Dr Marsh is taking so long to finish the examination." S/he nodded at the human-shaped figure crumpled at the base of the table in a sizeable puddle of blood, a large pair of surgical scissors embedded in its throat. "First of all," Omber continued, "We need to get that wound patched up as best as I can manage until you can find a qualified doctor... and we also need to find you some new clothes."

All in all, it took about fifteen minutes to complete this task: thanks to the dried blood virtually gluing the dress to her front, the danger of accidentally tearing the wound any further open and her own reluctance to dispose of the garment, it was quite some time before Glinda was able to actually remove the dress. Once that was done, she had to sit shivering and half-naked on the table for the next minute or so while Omber went about the arduous process of cleaning and bandaging the wound; long, monotonous and painful though it was, it thankfully Glinda an excuse to hurry into the adjoining bathroom and freshen up. Finally, she was given a fresh set of clothes: another set of blue-green hospital scrubs, complete with ill-fitting shoes, a surgical mask, and a hairnet.

"Is there any particular reason why I have to wear this?" she asked wearily, slightly muffled by the mask.

"Well, it's mainly to keep you from being recognized by the guards; once they find out we've escaped, they'll have our faces bulletined everyone. So long as we're dressed in something that blends in with the other employees, we won't end up having to fight off the bastards with scalpels and tongue depressors."

Glinda was halfway through nodding when a thought struck her like a lightning bolt: suddenly, after a whole day of feeling completely useless and at the mercy of everything and everyone, she was finally able to contribute something. "What about my wand?" she asked excitedly. "Maybe that'll help."

Omber's lips pursed as s/he digested this information. "You know how to use magic, then?"

"With a wand, yes. I'm not exactly a combat expert, but the guards don't know that. And I've got this trick that could get us out of the capital really easy."

"Brilliant! So where is this wand of yours?"

"Um, I'm not sure. I think they confiscated it when they first captured me. But it can't be too far away, can it?"

Omber thought for a moment, and then turned to the nearest of the equipment trays that surrounded them, hunting through the labelled drawers for about two minutes at the most. Eventually, s/he let out a sigh of mingled exasperation and disappointment, and very slowly withdrew the lowest of the drawers for Glinda's inspection: rolling around at the very bottom of the container was the wand - crudely divided into five separate pieces.

It was at that moment that Glinda swore she could actually _hear_ the deflating-balloon sound of her optimism collapsing in on itself: it wasn't just the fact that the two of them were now short a very useful piece of equipment _and_ a means of escaping via the Bubble, but now, Glinda's only reliable way of performing magic was gone. She'd been so proud of her magnificent silver wand when it was first presented to her, even if it really was just a crutch for her own hideously limited spellcasting abilities; for the first time in her life, she'd felt as though her talents had some measure of uniqueness, for no other magician in the country used a wand (mostly because they were considered embarrassing for fully-trained Witches and Wizards to be seen with). At times, she'd even managed to convince herself that was on the same level as Madame Morrible or even Elphaba, which was utter crap: Morrible was able to change the weather with an elegant gesture and a contemptuous glance; Elphaba could translate the Grimmerie by instinct, project magical power by force of will, and learned the art of spellcasting faster than any other student of the magic class before her... and what could Glinda do with her wand? Very little, apart from summon a huge bubble. What could she do without it? _Nothing._

"Something tells me they weren't taking chances with potentially dangerous materials," said Omber flatly.

"It wasn't dangerous," Glinda mumbled in reply, absently pocketing the bits of shattered wand and trying to console herself with the fact that she at least had a memento (or several mementos) of it.

"If you say so. Suffice to say the wand's no longer an option: we've got to get out of here on foot. But first, we just need to dispose of the evidence... could you help me with this?"

As she took hold of Dr Marsh's legs, Glinda absently reflected that this had been most usual day for her: having started the day by falling through a portal, she'd been knocked unconscious, separated, hustled onto a train, drugged, imprisoned, shocked, stunned, horrified, stabbed in the chest, paralysed, chilled to the bones, threatened with disembowelment, rescued by a complete stranger with no recognizable gender... and now here she was, freshly clad in an outfit that she normally wouldn't have been caught dead in, helping her rescuer dispose of a corpse in a mortuary furnace.

* * *

Outside, the chill in the air was only marginally lessened; unlike the morgue, it wasn't necessary to keep the hallways cold in order to preserve the dead until their autopsy. As far as Glinda was concerned, it was another measure just to make the place feel just a little more hellish... and there were already too many.

All around her, bleak white corridors stretched on for mile after mile, distances blurring and forks in the road appearing to vanish under the stark lights; the corridor they'd chosen had to be more than three hundred feet long, and it looked to be one of the shortest possible distances in this sterile labyrinth. Worse still, thanks to the tiled floor, their footsteps echoed so loudly that it felt as though they were setting off a dozen alarms with every step they took; before long, Glinda was almost too scared to speak in case a guard happened to overhear the conversation from a thousand yards away. And the only thing that soothed that particular fear was the equally-terrifying fact that nobody seemed to be travelling the corridors except for them: no workers, no doctors, no guards, and certainly nobody that might be in the mood to help. Maybe it was a busy time of night, and everyone was hard at work behind the many doors that lined these halls, but she couldn't shake the feeling that someone was going to burst out of a room to their left and order their arrest... or that the entire maze had been evacuated hours ago, and that she and Omber were only people left alive entire building.

In an attempt to quell her paranoiac imaginings, Glinda found herself resorting to the old coping strategies: although she couldn't distract herself with thoughts of fashion at this point (at least not without bringing up the fact that her shoes and dress were currently disintegrating at the bottom of a furnace), she could try and direct her attention elsewhere. First, she simply stared at the floor, if only to give herself something to look at other than blank white walls... but if anything, the tiled floor was all the more disturbing, in part because the cleaners apparently hadn't arrived yet to mop up after the day's... _leakages_. Worse still were the drainage gratings dividing each stretch of floor; apparently, the spills around here were so copious that they required drains to stop them from flooding the corridor – a thought that made Glinda's stomach twist in revulsion. After that, she tried thinking of what had happened to Elphaba and Dorothy, but that only led in the direction of more horror when she remembered what the train passengers had told her about the Irredeemables and the acts they committed upon their prisoners. Finally, she broke her silence and started talking with Omber, if only because s/he might have something that would stop her from going absolutely mad.

According to Omber, the complex that they'd ended up in was just one small corner of a vast network of underground tunnels and chambers hidden deep beneath Exemplar, inaccessible and largely unknown to the general public; only the most important, the most throughout-qualified, or the most unfortunate of citizens ever found themselves down here. Known to executives and employees alike as "The Deep Sepulchre," this labyrinth extended over three miles beneath the city streets – even deeper, according to some rumours. As for what it was used for, quite a bit of it was for processing criminals; the cells, the interrogation rooms, the disposal furnaces, the medical bays, and even the surgeries where Purification took place were all concealed down here. Of course, that wasn't the only use for the Sepulchre: from what Omber had heard, it was also a handy place to store classified information (governmental, military, or otherwise), with warehouses full of secrets comprising the chambers to the west; and thanks to the seclusion and sterility of the area, it was also a popular venue for scientific research too sensitive to be practised above ground. There was even a rumour that the University of Exemplar had a basement entrance to the facility, allowing novice mage-surgeons the opportunity to practice their skills on live human captives.

"How do you know about all this?" Glinda whispered. "I thought you said you were from Nobrewer."

"Nobruvo," Omber corrected. "True, I _live – _well, _lived –_ there, but I was born in Unbridled Radiance. And this isn't the first time I've been down here," s/he added darkly.

"Why were you down here the first time?"

"Well, I was halfway through university and they needed engineers and – in my case – trainee engineers to help redesign the generators and power distribution network."

"They hired you to help build a place like _this_?"

"Oh, of course: even top-secret facilities need people to make renovations every now and again. They need people who can keep the lights on and the power running, and fix the pipes and clean the floors and do the paperwork. They can't all be guards and doctors."

Glinda, who'd been conversing mainly to stop herself from paying too much attention to the really unpleasant things she'd seen and heard over the last few hours, suddenly asked, "You said that was the first time – how many times have you been down here in total."

Omber thought for a moment. "This'll be the fourth," s/he said at last.

"What?"

"Yeah, I'm shocked too."

"But why do you keep coming back here?"

"Not by choice, let me tell you that: like I said, I was here on commissioned work the first time. They kept me away from the really extraordinary things, made me sign about five dozen different confidentiality forms, paid off my student loan and sent me on my way. The second time, one of the other hired engineers had been caught spilling the beans to a spy from the Deviant Nations, so Her Radiance's finest brought me down here to 'assist in their inquiries.'" S/he shuddered. "They didn't find me guilty or anything, but I didn't sleep for quite a while after that. The third time... well, that was what prompted me to get the hell out the country - they'd accused me of having ties to Deviant groups, you see."

"And did you?"

Omber fell silent for a moment or two, the already-frowning face overshadowed by depression. "I don't know," s/he said at last. "These days, Deviancy means whatever the Empress wants it to mean. And that's why I left the country, after they were finished breaking my fingers and sentencing me to permanent house arrest. As soon as I had a chance to escape, I fled across the border and settled in Nobruvo. Then, of course, Unbridled Radiance annexed Nobruvo and I got dragged all the way back here to serve as a low-priority information source."

S/he offered a distinctly unhappy-looking grin. "Once this place has its talons in you, there's no escaping. It's like having an invisible bungee cord around your waist – you can run and fall as far as you can and as many times as you like, but you always end up bouncing right back here."

A scream split the otherwise perfect silence of the empty corridor; once the two of them had recovered their nerves, they slowly crept towards the source of the noise. It turned out to be an open door perhaps ten feet to their left: the room behind it was apparently empty except for a number of filing cabinets and a large box-shaped device with two spinning wheels on its front; but Glinda's eyes were swiftly drawn away from those objects by the sight of a large window overlooking another, slightly smaller concrete-walled cell. Here, a bloodied figure was strapped to a chair, his bruised head lolling drunkely back and forth as he mumbled a confession through broken teeth. As he did so, machinery set into the ceiling above him whirred and chattered as they transcribed his speech; an expressionless doctor withdrew the syringe from the man's arm and went about preparing another injection... and two grim-faced gentlemen in slick leather aprons briskly sharpened their tools for another round.

"Oh _Oz,"_ Glinda whispered.

"We're back in the interrogation block," Omber whispered, eyes carefully averted from the carnage beyond the window. "Means we're on the right track to the Clarion road exit."

S/he was about to set off down the corridor, when Glinda grabbed him/her by the shoulder and urgently hissed, "Can't we help him-"

Omber's face twitched involuntarily. "No. I'm sorry, but no: he's dead meat already, and we'll be the same or worse if we try and break in."

"But you rescued me from vivisection a few minutes ago. What were you risking when you saved me from being cut open?"

"Nothing: you were alone except for one non-Purified hack. _He_ isn't."

"But we can't just _leave_ him! I mean, he can't have done anything to deserve anything like that!"

"I know that, Glinda, I _know,"_ and there was a hint of desperation in Omber's voice, as if s/he thought Glinda was about to take a flying leap through the two-way mirror. "Not even the actual criminals who end up here deserve it. But we can't help him or the few hundred others like him, not without getting killed or captured."

"_You-"_ Glinda hastily lowered her voice, and whispered, "You don't know that! We could set off an alarm somewhere, distract the guards long enough to get him out of there. I mean, if you've been down here three times, shouldn't you know alternate routes we could take? That way, we can avoid the guards on our way back here, and rescue him without being caught!"

The engineer's lips pursed in exasperation. "Okay, okay, that's possible... but I don't know anywhere we could set off alarms without getting cornered by the guards – not unless we catch them between shifts. Plus, I'm not sure if the poor bastard's in any condition to walk, let alone breathe unassisted. And how are we supposed to mop up the blood-trail he's going to be leaving for the guards to follow? We won't be able to outrun them while we're carrying him around – and trying to stop that hole in your gut from tearing open. And what if we get lost? I know this place well, but I haven't got the floor plan entirely memorized."

"I... I... w... we can't... I..."

Glinda floundered. She had no idea what she could possibly say to any of Omber's suggestions, and worse still, it had just occurred to her that she didn't even know what would happen if they actually happened to meet with inquisitive guards – guards that might want to know why the two "nurses" were so reluctant to take their masks off. She knew that all things considered, it would probably be better if she just admitted that there was nothing they could do and went on trying not to think about what was going on in the room just beyond the two-way mirror. But she couldn't shake the crippling sensation of guilt that was slowly crushing her insides to pulp; it was a sensation she'd been largely oblivious to for much of her life, except on the few occasions when she managed to direct a thought towards what she was actually doing – which had been a rare occurrence during the first eighteen years of her life, sad to say. And she'd found herself feeling it more and more as every day went by, usually at times when she couldn't have made any sort of difference (or so she thought), so by now, that awful feeling of helplessness and isolation from the world around her was becoming acutely familiar – and acutely painful.

"We can't just leave him to die," she finished pathetically.

Omber's frown deepened. "He's not going to die," s/he said grimly, "Not if the Studious Interviewers have their way." With that, s/he very carefully shut the door, muffling the captive's screams behind a layer of soundproofing, and tiptoed away.

Glinda followed, hating herself a little more with every step.

After that, silence prevailed for several minutes: Omber was trying to figure out where they were in relation to where they'd been intending to go, and Glinda was trying think of anything other than what she'd just witnessed; how she'd ended up in this madhouse, the truth behind the Empress, where the real Elphaba had been taken, Omber's gender – anything, so long as it wasn't the sound of torturers at work.

Eventually, after more than half an hour of wandering down the long, echoing corridors without meeting a single human being, they finally starting encountering the Sepulchre's other employees: most of them were bureaucrats and messengers carrying huge stacks of paper from one end of the facility to the other at high speed, barely even noticing the two masked nurses long enough to shout "'scuse me!" Some were mechanics and janitors hauling toolkits or pushing carts of disinfectant, and they barely gave _anyone_ a second glance, their eyes very carefully directed at the ground. A few were guards, resplendent in their gleaming white uniforms and heavily armed with a deadly-looking assortment of blades and firearms; these usually travelled in pairs, either on patrol or escorting prisoners to the cellblock or the interrogation chamber. It was these hard-faced characters that the two of them had to be careful around, for the guards were constantly on watch for any sign of rebellion or Deviancy among their fellow workers: apparently, making eye-contact with them was considered a sign of _both,_ forcing Glinda and Omber to mimic the janitors and keep their heads down whenever a guard passed by.

Occasionally, there'd be a mage-surgeon prowling the corridor, and everyone – including Omber – went out of their way to give them a wide berth; even Glinda found herself following suit very quickly, if only because the wandering surgeons terrified the life out of her: the ones who were fresh out of the operating theatres were often still splattered with blood, and they tended to wear opaque black spectacles that – coupled with their surgical masks and caps – gave Glinda the uncomfortable feeling that they didn't really have faces, just fleshless skulls with gaping sockets. But those who'd had time to change into their splendorous tailored suits were even worse: from the sculpted cast of their faces and their porcelain-smooth skin, it was clear that all of them were Purified, and their eerily luminous eyes all but transfixed Glinda as they passed her. The fact that all of them were smiling didn't help. Of course, there were perhaps one or two mage-surgeons who didn't seem to have been Purified just yet, but judging by the way people spoke to them they were quite low on the career ladder.

After perhaps ten or twenty minutes of wandering past the mixture of functionaries and officials, the two of them turned a corner, then another, and suddenly found themselves in an otherwise empty hallway – empty except for a single frosted glass door at the very end, a bright red "KEEP OUT" sign emblazoned above it. It was hard to tell through the haze of reinforced glass, but it looked as though there might be a marked exit somewhere in the distance beyond. The door itself was quite securely locked, a keypad and no less than five solid steel bars keeping it from being forced open.

"Do you know the code?" Glinda asked.

"Don't need to," said Omber smoothly, drawing a screwdriver and a pair of pliers from his/her pocket. "Hopefully," s/he added. Very slowly, the keypad was prized away from the wall, exposing a small bird's nest of wires and cables that s/he immediately set upon as methodically and carefully as possible; this very quickly left Glinda keeping watch on the passageway if only to keep Omber's eyes focussed on the keypad and stop the "hotwiring" process from dragging on forever

"I _think_ it was this way," the engineer muttered after about fifteen minutes of rummaging and twiddling. "It _was_ this way the last time. Or was it a left instead of a right at the fork? Or the fork before that?"

"There's only one way to find out," said Glinda, almost proud that she'd managed to keep her patience in check. "What's supposed to be behind this door?"

"As far as I can remember, it was just a bureaucratic storeroom; lots and lots of filing cabinets but nothing else. Of course, if I've taken us in the wrong direction, this could probably lead just about anywhere. We could end up in _very_ serious trouble."

"But if we turn back now, we'll have officially gotten ourselves lost," Glinda pointed out. "We'll be stuck wandering around until somebody realizes that Marsh hasn't reported back and sends the guards after us."

"Screwed if we do, screwed if we don't. Fair enough then." There was a spark from one of the wires, and the locks on the door noisily disengaged. "I really hope they haven't posted gun-turrets on the other side," s/he muttered. Then, without another word, s/he fastened the keypad back onto the wall and swung the door open, allowing the two of them to enter in what was hopefully the most nonchalant way possible.

As it turned out, the room was a two-hundred-foot wide rotunda of polished granite, dotted with gated entrances and exits; however, perhaps twenty or thirty feet in, the room opened up into an enormous hole in the floor. Peering gingerly over the railing, Glinda saw an immensely deep shaft leading down hundreds upon hundreds of feet, its walls ridged with the spiralling steps of a very long staircase. However, every few hundred feet, both the shaft and the stairs were blocked by a very thick sheet of glass, the rim of each one carved with an indecipherable series of glowing symbols. Other than the heavy steel doors in each sheet there didn't seem to be any way down the staircase, and judging by the fiendishly intricate-looking controls beside the nearest door, this left whatever was at the bottom of the shaft just about untouchable.

"Definitely not just a storeroom," she said, unable to disguise the awe in her voice. She glanced back up at the many doors of the rotunda, and asked, "Which of these do think leads to the exit."

Omber said nothing: s/he was staring in astonishment at something far below them. Perhaps five floors and three layers of glass below them, the walls alongside the stairs were etched with dozens upon dozens of luminous green channels like veins, emerging from the granite in weirdly straight lines and converging as they descended. Very slowly, Glinda followed the channels down the walls to the very bottom of the shaft where, perhaps a thousand feet below them, they united at the base of a towering obelisk. Even from here, it was pretty obvious from the colour and the slight transparency to it that the monolith was solid emerald.

"Holy _shit,"_ Omber breathed.

"What is it?"

"I... I knew it was real, but I never actually thought it was down here. It's... it's _Paragon,_ Glinda_."_

"Paragon?" Glinda echoed. "I heard the Empress say something about that earlier, and Marsh too; once they were finished cutting me open and they couldn't put me back together again, they were going to "incorporate" me into it. But what does that even mean? And what _is_ Paragon, anyway?"

Omber licked his/her lips and took a very deep breath. "From what I've been told, it's meant to be a fusion of cutting-edge machinery and enchantments cast by the Empress herself; supposedly, it's used to control the Vigilant Eyes, to help plan military strategies, even to predict economic developments. That is essentially Unbridled Radiance's second brain at work down there, and it takes orders only from the first brain – otherwise known as the Empress."

"So, it's a machine?"

"It's not _just_ a machine, Glinda: this thing doesn't just calculate statistics and puke out details; it's capable of sentient cognition – or something so much like it that nobody can tell the difference. It's a _Thinking Engine!"_ S/he was smiling now, a wide manic grin that stretched from ear to ear. "If only we had more time to watch, if only we could get past those damn doors," s/he muttered, dark eyes aglow. "I've barely even heard of tech that comes close to the stuff at work down there, let alone _seen_ anything like it. Oh, I wish I'd held on to that map of the storerooms – they might actually have the blueprints of the damn thing there..."

_Just like Elphaba and libraries,_ Glinda thought, barely managing to hide an amused smirk.

She was about to ask for more information (which wasn't entirely surprising, given the details of a machine that could think for itself) when she saw, just out of the corner of her eye, a cluster of figures descending the stairs perhaps three hundred feet below – just above the first layer of glass but thankfully well out of earshot. Even at this distance, she clearly recognized the Empress, still cloaked all in white as she made her way towards Paragon.

"Shit, shit, shit, shit..." Omber muttered; he'd obviously seen the Empress too. "Why is it that you never have a decent sniper rifle on hand when you really, really want it?"

The other figures in the entourage were equally familiar to Glinda: the bodyguard in the silver mask was still flanking the Empress at all times; behind them, Ambassador Hayfelt followed closely, nodding deferentially at every order provided; behind _him,_ a few of the diplomatic staff from the train struggled to keep up... in fact, the only members of the group that Glinda didn't recognize were the tiny knot of gentlemen in peaked hats and opulent gold-and-white uniforms, though Omber helpfully identified them as generals.

"And what about the one in the mask, who's he?"

"Nobody knows his name. Hell, nobody's even seen what's under his mask. Technically, he's not a bodyguard; after all, when you're as powerful as the Empress, you don't really need bodyguards. No, he's much more active than that: he's an assassin, he's an enforcer, and he's even led troops into battle – and fought on the front lines, too. In any event, when things are dire enough to get the Empress's attention but not quite enough to get her to appear in person, she sends him in as muscle." S/he shrugged. "Suffice to say, most people just call him the Empress's Champion and leave it at that."

Meanwhile, the Empress had reached the first sheet of glass and was now making a number of extremely complicated gestures over the control panel. But as the door rumbled open, a voice spoke – a voice that seemed to emanate from the very walls of the shaft.

"_Positive match for executive entry #1. Identity confirmed. Welcome, Empress."_

"Good evening, Paragon. I trust that your computations run as smooth as always?"

("It's talking!" Omber whispered excitedly, as the Imperial retinue began their descent into the pit. "It's actually talking!")

"_Estimates for the required batch of flesh-porcelain are complete,"_ the Thinking Engine intoned. Its voice didn't sound like a singular voice at all, but that of dozens of people speaking at once in the same emotionless drone. "_The ones concerning the replacement of the eastern border facility are well underway, likely to be finished within the hour."_

"Excellent. And has there been any news from the squadrons of Vigilant Eyes dispatched to the border?"

"_They reported in perhaps five hours ago, Empress. As intel suggested, groups of Irredeemables were encountered across the border at varying points: two squadrons were successful in eliminating their respective bands of Irredeemables before they could escape; the majority of the squadrons only managed to score perhaps five or six confirmed kills before their targets escaped over the border. The group responsible for the attack on the railway building escaped before the Eyes could locate them. Overall, we have a total of eighty-seven enemy casualties." _

"As opposed to the three hundred and fifteen personnel lost in the attack on the military base. We'll have to even the score a little... In the meantime, I have good news for you, Paragon: you may have another friend soon."

The serene hum of Paragon's background noise fluttered a little. _"Is this truly necessary, Empress?"_ it asked, a slight hint of uncertainty in its voice.

"_Very_ necessary. There's a purity to her mind I wish to see preserved before it can be corrupted by enemy agents, and believe you are just the gestalt to keep her safe from the enemy's deceptions... and she may have secrets that only you can unveil – the kind of secrets only a mystery in the guise of my dearest friend would possess."

"_Are there no alternate methods?"_

"None that will ensure both her survival _and_ that of her innocence; you don't _really _want to be without a new friend do you?"

There was an anxious-sounding whirr from the surrounding walls, and Paragon reluctantly answered _"No."_

"Good. Then we can schedule her incorporation for nine o'clock in the morning. Now, in the meantime, we have the matter of retaliatory strikes to consider: I feel we should avoid attacks on the border altogether this time and take advantage of the latest developments in teleportation. Tell me, exactly how far above Greenspectre do the magical defences extend? Oh, and do shut the door, Paragon; I'd rather not have to include every single member of staff in this discussion..."

The door obediently clanged shut, dampening any further attempts at listening in. For almost a full minute, the two eavesdroppers remained perfectly silent; Glinda still puzzling over everything she'd seen and heard, Omber shivering in mingled fear and exhilaration.

"What now?" Glinda whispered at last.

Omber swallowed hard. "Now," s/he mumbled, "I think I'd like to get out of here and try to put everything we just heard to good use. I know a few people – well, I know _of _a few people – who'd be able to get us out of the country in exchange for that information."

"Like who? Last I looked, we weren't exactly swimming in allies, and that's assumiating we can even get out of this maze. And how would we find them? Actually, let's get back to the first point – who could we sell it to?"

"Oh, the Deviant Nations for a start; I don't think they know much about Paragon or where it's kept. They'd be happy to help us in exchange for that. Plus we've got a nugget or two of tactical information to sweeten the pot – so long as we can find one of their agents in time."

Glinda made a face. Even without every other bit of gossip from the train ringing in her ears, she still didn't think much of the Deviant Nations: after all, it was their soldiers who'd attacked and (hopefully) captured Elphaba. And besides, even if the rumours and propaganda were accurate and the Deviant Nations really did have agents in Exemplar, how the hell would they find them and how the hell would _they_ get the out of the country. "Any other ideas?"

"Well, there's other countries who have it in for Unbridled Radiance; Nobruvo had allies, of course. And there's plenty of independent organizations who'd be willing to pay: the Watchful Eyes society, Dark & Stormy Nights Inc, the Sorcerer's Ironmongery, the Mistress of Mirrors, the Amorphous L-" S/he stopped, the frown returning to his/her face with a vengeance. "Well, we'd still have to find their agents first."

"Let's just focus on getting out of here," Glinda sighed. She straightened, ironing out a crick in her neck as she went. "Come on, let's pick one of these doors and get going."

Omber nodded, reluctantly tearing his/her eyes away from the machinery at work on the walls of the shaft; as one, the two of them made a beeline for the nearest doorway to their immediate left. But they'd barely gone ten feet when a strident voice from behind them barked, "You there! Halt!"

Instantly, they halted; for a tenth of second, Glinda considered ignoring all orders and just running for her life, but almost as quickly thought better of it. After all, the owner of the voice might just be armed, and she wasn't all that enthused about dying from a gunshot wound to the back, especially scant hours after she'd managed to narrowly escape death on the operating table. Very slowly, she and Omber turned to face the source of the voice: as it turned out, it was a pair of irritable-looking guards with rifles at the ready. "What are you two doing there?" one of them growled. "This is a restricted area."

Under the mask, Omber's jaw flapped helplessly for a moment or two, a deer-in-the-headlights look written clearly in wide, terrified eyes. And with a thrill of despair, Glinda realized she'd witnessed this before during her own vivisection, when Marsh had had to prompt his new "assistant" through the process; once again s/he'd been caught off guard, and this time, Omber didn't have an excuse ready. Worse still, they weren't dealing with one preoccupied surgeon, but two armed guards who might just declare them spies and shoot them dead on the spot. And they were getting angrier even as Omber was getting more flustered, and their fingers were slowly creeping over the triggers and...

And suddenly, Glinda found herself stepping forward and saying, "Thank goodness you're here, officers! We've gotten completely lost!" Without even realizing it, she'd adopted the same irrepressibly bubbly tone of voice that everyone who'd ever met her tended to remembered her by – that cheerful, giggling trill that, in hindsight, had probably made her sound a bit dim.

"How did you get in?"

"The door was unlocked, sir; we were in a hurry and we needed to take a shortcut."

There was another heart-stopping pause, as one of the other guards checked the locks on the door they'd emerged from. "Broken," he said at last. "We're going to need a repairman down here."

"Dammit. Alright then, where exactly are you two going?" the first guard asked; he wasn't snarling anymore, but there was still a dangerously no-nonsense edge to his voice.

"Um..." What had Omber said? Oh yes! "The Clarion Road exit," she answered.

"In hospital scrubs and masks? You know damn well you're not supposed to leave the job in uniform, nurse."

Glinda's mind raced. "We're, um, not leaving exactly: our shift's not over yet." She did her best to sound sheepish, amping up the childishness ever-so-slightly – though Glinda had to admit that she sounded worryingly like she was about to apologize for getting caught with her hand in the cookie jar. "But we were told to meet someone there for, um, a special assignment in about fifteen minutes. One of the doctors said it was really important, said we'd be out of a job if we didn't show up." Puppy-dog eyes now, with just a hint of "oh god, I hate my boss" in her tone.

"Really? Who?"

"Dr Marsh," Glinda lied smoothly. After all, the bastard was dead, so it wasn't likely he'd be able to refute the statement.

The guard thought for a minute. "Hmm. I'll let you off with a warning this time," he said at last. "But I warn you: if we catch you two wandering around here again without special authorization, you'll be spending the rest of your day in the cellblock; and don't think you're invisible either – the door you walked through was on a silent alarm, and this chamber's under watch at all times. Is that understood?"

"Absolutely," said Glinda, adding a note of pathetic gratitude to her voice.

"Good. Now, the Clarion Road exit's to the east of here – that doorway over there. It's a walk of about half an hour or so; don't take any of the paths that fork to the left, and keep on doing that until you see the signs pointing you the rest of the way. Got that? Good. Now be on your way."

"Thank you, sir," Glinda simpered. She elbowed Omber in the ribs, and s/he hesitantly followed suit. Then, they turned and all but ran in the direction that the guard had indicated. For a few minutes, the two of them were silent except for the thudding of their shoes – first against granite and then against tiles as they jogged out of the rotunda and back into the labyrinth of corridors. Eventually, as they rejoined the trickle of traffic along the path, they slowed to what hopefully looked like a leisurely stroll to any of the other employees drifting along the corridor and finally breathed easily.

"Nicely done," Omber whispered, in a voice just low enough to avoid the hearing of any eavesdroppers. "But let's not do that again in a hurry; I don't think I could stand two heart attacks in as many minutes."

"Minutes? I seem to be managing one just about every other second, these days." _Of course, given the way this stab-wound in my gut feels right now, a heart-attack's probably the least of my worries._

"You certainly didn't show it back there. You're a very effective liar."

Glinda cringed. "It's... it's what I do for a living," she admitted sheepishly.

"Really? What line of work were you in before you were captured? I can see you as an actress – don't take this the wrong way, but you've certainly got the looks for the part. Or were you in one of the more intensive fields, like media or politics?"

_Of course you want to know,_ Glinda thought exasperatedly. _Because I went out of my way to ask so many questions about the mysterious Mr/Ms Landless, now s/he wants to know about _my_ past. And we're starting on the stuff I'm not particularly proud of. Wonderful._ Out loud, she replied, "Politics. Well, I wasn't a politician exactly, but I did _represent_ the government of Oz; specifically the Wizard – the ruler of the country."

"Oh, so it's a magocracy, then?"

"I'm sorry?"

"A magocracy – a government controlled by a magician or a group of magicians. Unbridled Radiance is a good example; apparently one or two of the Deviant Nations are like that, but they're apparently a bit more open to changes in leadership. So, is the Wizard anything like that?"

"Um, no. Technically, the Wizard doesn't really have any magical power of his own; he's just very good at convincing people that he does. For the most part, he just fakes magic with machines and special effects – except of course when he actually needs to get something done and not just pretend it happened, and he usually gets around that by hiring magicians to do the work for him. Then he takes all the credit for himself. And because the Wizard keeps them well-paid and happy, none of them ever complain." She wanted to stop there and leave her secrets unsaid, but something at the back of her mind very quietly gave way, and suddenly she found herself continuing: "Of course, one of them complained – not about the pay, she wasn't anywhere near that petty – and quit before the Wizard could even properly hire her and started a rebellion against the Wizard in the name of Animal Rights and no it wasn't me because let's face it I'm honestly not that talented and I didn't realize that the only reason Morrible and the Wizard kept me around was because they needed a pretty face to explain things to the public and if they ever found a good enough reason to fire me they'd fling me out the door without a second glance because Elphaba was supposed to be their golden girl and when she rebelled they got stuck with less-than-second-best because they were running low on trained witches and I was the only one slightly qualified." She took a deep breath, and realized that Omber was staring at her. "Or maybe," she finished weakly, "I was just the only one who didn't have the guts to say no."

"... I take it you've been waiting to get that off your chest for quite a while now," said Omber.

"You have no idea."

"But you used present tense – does that mean the Wizard's still in power?"

"He was the last time I looked."

"So, he's collaborating with the Empress, then? I mean, it wouldn't be the first time I saw a head of state kowtow to Unbridled Radiance just to stay in power, but it's still –"

"No, no, no, Unbridled Radiance hasn't invaded Oz at all. As a matter of fact, I hadn't even heard of it before I got here."

Omber's eyes narrowed. "So, if you weren't transported from occupied territory, how _did _you get into the country – or even onto the train? And more importantly, if you're not a political prisoner or an enemy operative, then why is the Empress so interested in you?"

Glinda opened her mouth to reply, and quickly realized she didn't have a reply to this. After all, putting into words the fact that she'd been accidentally dragged through a portal into a world where her best friend was actually a megalomaniacal dictator who'd ended their last meeting by stabbing her through the belly with a dagger of ice was a bit beyond her ability to communicate at this point.

And it was that moment that, just as she realized that she couldn't guess at Omber's reaction to the truth, the ear-splitting wail of an alarm bell tore through the air (and Glinda's eardrums); a moment later, the dull, officious voice on the other end of the facility's public address system intoned "THIS IS A PRIORITY 1 ALERT: TWO PRISONERS ARE ON THE LOSE IN THE FACILITY, LIKELY DIGUISED. THE PRISONERS' DESCRIPTIONS ARE AS FOLLOWS: ONE FEMALE, BLONDE..."

"Don't run," Omber hissed. "Stay calm; they don't know it's us just yet. Keep your eyes to the floor, walk slowly, and just act casual."

Behind them, a distant voice roared, "HEY! YOU TWO_ –_ STOP _RIGHT _THERE!"

"Forget everything I just said. RUN!"

Glinda didn't need to be told twice: unencumbered by high-heels and hallway-blocking skirts for the first time in years, she put her head down and sprinted away; in that moment, she was completely oblivious to anything other than the forks in the path she'd been warned about, the blurring presence of Omber to her right, and the distant sound of jackbooted feet thudding after them.

* * *

"Where the hell are we?"

"Does it matter? They're not following us anymore."

"Well, that's probably because we're nowhere near the Clarion Road exit, Glinda; this is a completely different region of the Sepulchre!"

Mopping sweat from her forehead and trying to ignore the stinging pain in her midriff, Glinda wearily surveyed the scene: as far as she could tell, the corridor that they'd arrived in was almost identical to the last twelve they'd hurried down, which was probably the exact reason why they'd ended up accidentally taking a wrong turn. Or at least, she had to presume that they'd taken a wrong turn, because the signs that the guard mentioned had been nowhere in sight. At the moment, other than the next few hundred feet of corridor, the only other way out was the enormous wooden door to their left – a door that was surprisingly unlocked. Omber made a point of noting that s/he didn't know what was behind it.

"Is there any reason why we shouldn't check to see what's behind it?" Glinda asked, once she'd gotten her breath back. "I mean, even if we do find the exit, they'll still be chasing us and the corridors are full of guards. Why don't we hide in there?"

"For all we know, that's the Sepulchre's armoury, or worse still, the barracks."

"But what if it isn't?"

"Well, I hate to burst your bubble over this, Glinda, but they're going to be searching this place for us and we don't know if this place can work as a hiding place. For all we know, it's an empty room with nothing that we can actually hide behind, under or in. And..."

Somewhere in the distance, there was the loud thud of a door being battered down; much closer, the familiar echoing thud of boots on tiles could be heard.

"... And we're kind of starved for choice," Glinda finished. "We either hide in here or take our chances with the next corridor."

Omber sighed. "And if there's no unlocked rooms or no rooms at all on that one, we take our chances with the one after that, until we're both exhausted and arrested. Fair enough. Here goes nothing..."

As it turned out, the door led to the junk-cluttered base of a freezing concrete stairwell leading up – up, out of the Sepulchre and hopefully towards the street. Without even bothering to ask each other if this might be an exit, the two of them took a moment to lock the door and jam it closed with an old chair, then charged up the steps as fast as their legs could carry them; and when they started to run short of breath and their pace almost ground to a halt, they took hold of the railing and hauled themselves bodily up the remaining eight flights. There was only one other door in the entire stairwell, and that only came into view on the last leg of the climb; hiking onto the landing, they wearily shouldered the door open and staggered into the dim light of another corridor. On the upside, this one had carpets and polished wood panelling in place of tiles and drainage gates (though the inevitable doors leading to storerooms and supply cupboards were still about; sadly, Omber rejected them as being "too obvious" hiding places).

But it wasn't until they'd crept around the corridor and into the light that they finally saw the glass display cabinet almost overflowing with polished trophies: this was a school.

"Exemplar University," Omber whispered. "So the rumours were true."

"Do you think there's anyone around?"

"Of course; even universities have security guards and janitors. And it's been years since I attended, but I think they'll still have a few night classes on at this hour."

"Shouldn't we get out of here, then? I mean, if we've got both the Sepulchre's guards and the university guards after us –"

"It all depends on where we hide. The night classes will all be mage-surgeons in training; the guards aren't allowed to interfere with their seminars unless someone's died. Unless one of the students or teachers died," s/he amended.

An idea struck Glinda. "Do the janitors have a locker-room somewhere on the campus?" she asked. "Would they have uniforms in storage?"

"Possibly. Is it really important?"

"Well, back in Oz, some janitors were required to wear masks and goggles while handling certain cleaning chemicalities. Is it the same thing here?"

Omber's eyes lit up. "Yes," s/he said. "It's probably not far from here. Hopefully, the guards won't think to update their search from a pair of nurses to a pair of cleaners. We'll just have to chance it."

"Wonderful! Let's go –"

"Hang on," Omber hissed. "I think it might be a good idea if you stayed behind for this one."

"What? Why?"

"Because it's very difficult for two people to be perfectly stealthy; if we go crashing about the corridors, both trying to stay hidden at once, we're going to get caught. Plus, I know the place better than you. If you can just stay in hiding for the moment, I should be able to get into the locker room from here and steal some uniforms for both of us."

"And where am I supposed to hide?"

By way of an answer, Omber tried the nearest door; much to their mutual surprise, it turned out to be unlocked and swung open quite easily.

"In there," s/he answered, glancing inside. "It looks like a lecture hall to me; there's plenty of hiding places about. All you need to do is stay still and stay quiet."

"But what are we supposed to do if they find me... and what are _you_ supposed to do if it turns out that they knew we'd look for a change in disguises? What will you do if the locker-room's a trap, or if they've started conducting random inspections for anyone wearing a mask or hats or whatever?"

Omber's lips pursed, apparently his/her signature way of saying "good point." But just as s/he was about to reply, there was the familiar squeal of a swinging door opening, followed by the sound of dozens of people talking as quietly as possible. Without saying another word, Omber darted forward and bodily shoved Glinda through the open door, shutting it as quietly as possible. "I'll be back in a minute," s/he whispered, almost as an afterthought. "Keep out of sight."

As the engineer's footsteps vanished into the distance, Glinda fumingly surveyed the room she'd been deposited in. Just as Omber had said, it was a lecture hall; in sharp contrast to the weird and otherworldly sights that she'd been witness to that day, this place looked almost identical to the halls she'd seen back at Shiz: arranged in an amphitheatre, centred around a blackboard, ringed with hard wooden seats and flimsy built-in desks (each one complete with a wad of old gum, no doubt). There were even supply cupboards dotted around the room in the event of an equipment failure. True, it looked substantially larger than the lecture halls she'd deigned to attend at university, but other than that it was almost completely identical.

With so much familiarity around her, it wasn't until she took a good look at the centre of the room that she realized that something was ever-so-slightly wrong: here, the seats ended with a guardrail and a thick shatterproof glass barrier; it was clear enough to see what was going on behind it, and the presence of doors behind the stage and set in the glass (locked), but what was being studied in this hall that needed this kind of protection? More disturbingly, this part of the room wasn't carpeted, but tiled just like the halls of the sepulchre; most of the blackboard was now covered with large charts depicting either cross-sections of human anatomy or surgical procedures that made Glinda's badly-abused stomach lurch; and finally, the traditional lectern had been replaced by what she at first mistook for a dentist's chair, up until she realized that no dentist that _she'd_ ever visited had needed leather restraints on the armrests, or the fearsome-looking array of machines looming over the chair from above.

Just as Glinda was starting to wonder if this place was really such a safe place to hide, she heard the sound of whispered conversation once again, but much closer this time – not only was it getting steadily closer, but it was clearly heading straight towards the lecture hall. Remembering what Omber had said about night-time classes, Glinda hastily surveyed the room for possible hiding places; after twelve frantic seconds of ruling out "behind the door" or "under the chairs," she finally settled on the nearest supply cupboard at the back of the room. Scurrying over, she flung the door open to find (alongside the small column of shelves cluttered with medical equipment) an alcove for spare surgical gowns _just_ large enough for Glinda to hide in. So, ducking her head and thanking all her lucky stars for the latest diet, she sidled into the cupboard and carefully shut the door behind her.

Then, the students streamed in by the hundreds. Opening the cupboard door the tiniest crack to observe them, Glinda couldn't quite stop herself focussing on the similarities between the crowd and her university friends: by and large, the Exemplar U kids weren't much different from the Shiz U kids – the uniforms were black and red instead of blue and white, and the student were much more obsessively-groomed (and a few of the men seemed to be wearing _makeup_ for some reason) but other than that they weren't so different. _Why the hell am I analysifying this?_ She wondered to herself. _I'm already scared, worried, jittery from all the excitement, and in danger of tearing the hole in my stomach open again. The last thing I need is to add disillusionment with my university days to the list of problems._

By now, the lecturer had arrived, and was now clearing her throat for attention; to Glinda's surprise, the goings-on in the centre of the room were projected onto vast screens around the room, allowing even the most distant of spectators a clear view of what was happening – including Glinda. As such, she could see that the lecturer was clearly one of the Purified, as was the man who'd accompanied her in; and both of them were wearing surgical gowns.

"Good evening, ladies and gentleman," the lecturer trilled, an almost-friendly smile gracing her heart-shaped face and full lips. "Before we begin, I'd like to thank Professor Dreyditch for inviting me and Dr Rance for this most important demonstration, and I would like to thank all of you for attending at this late hour. For those of you who don't know me, my name is Dr Visseria Cataphlax; I specialise in the physical component of Purification, and I work either in the Ascendency Temples or in more classified areas, but today, I've been requested to provide your first practical demonstration of the procedure in question. The man with me is Dr Raynald Rance, an expert on the mental components of Purification – an altogether more intricate aspect, as you'll soon discover. And our patient for tonight's lecture..."

The door behind her swung open, and a gurney was wheeled in by a pair of orderlies: strapped to the gurney by the legs, arms, waist and head, a man flailed pointlessly against his bonds and screamed for help. Completely naked, he was pale as a sheet and bleeding from shallow cuts on his wrists and ankles, presumably from his attempts to escape the restraints. But it wasn't until the camera projected the captive's pallid face onto the nearest screen that Glinda realized with horror that she'd seen this man before: it was Walter, the man who'd been rescued from the guards at the train station – just before his rescuers had been charred to a crisp by the Vigilant Eyes and he'd been recaptured.

"_...And sent back to us as one of those... things!"_ she'd heard the rescue party shout. _"You might as well kill him right now!"_

Back in the present, Walter's restraints were very carefully undone, and with his arms clenched in the vicelike grip of the orderlies, he was forcibly seated in the chair and belted into place once again. And all the while, the man was screaming at the top of his voice, either begging for the mage-surgeons to have mercy on him, or just begging the audience to save him – up until Cataphlax drew a syringe from the nearest tray of instruments and injected it into his neck. It didn't silence Walter altogether, but it did cut down on most of his attempts to escape or call for help: indeed, as the injection took effect, it was pretty clear that he was barely able to turn his head, and when he spoke, it wasn't much louder than a hoarse whisper.

Then the chair began to change shape, flattening out into an operating table that left Walter lying helplessly under the brilliant glare of the overhead light. The screens took a bird's-eye view of him then, splayed out across the newly-formed table and looking half-dead already, even as he waited for the mage-surgeons to start cutting him up. Glinda absently wondered if she would have looked like that when she was still unconscious and awaiting vivisection, and shuddered in revulsion and pity.

"Our patient for tonight," Cataphlax continued, "Is Mr Walter Luddestone of newly-annexed Galathos. Having distinguished himself in both accounting and administration in one of the city's most prominent banking groups, he was selected for promotion and transferral to the centre for economic management here in Exemplar. However, when it became clear that this would entail Purification, he went so far as to hire the services of a known mercenary band and set off a bomb in his apartment in an attempt to fake his death. As you can see, he was unsuccessful, and given that he is the most recent arrival of scheduled candidates, we were able to secure him for tonight's demonstration.

"So, to begin: you have been told in the past that Purification is a necessary operation to provide those pure of spirit but impure of body with the bodies they have been denied. This is true, except for one element: this is more than just an operation; this is an _art._ We are not simply cleaning a wound or amputating an infected limb; nor are we mass-producing the elite guardsmen's armour-plating, content to build one-size-fits-all skins for the dozens of intakes inducted every month. We are crafting better bodies for the Empress's chosen; we are sculpting new forms out of living clay, utilizing magic, technology, and fusions of both; we are utilizing a wide variety of data, from the patient's own health records to the shapes and themes of classical art. We may call this man here a patient, but in truth, he will be the latest in a long line of men and women who, with our help, have transcended imperfection and unrighteousness to join the Empress in the purity she has attained."

In the silence that followed, Walter slurred, "Please, don't do this. Please..."

"Drugs are a necessity in the early stages of the operation," the mage-surgeon continued, ignoring her captive's pleas. "Quite apart from the need to concentrate on the task at hand and eliminate all sources of noise, it is imperative that the patient remain still as possible. In the past, many who were not sedated tended to die of shock, or simply ruined the procedure through constant struggling. Of course, it is also necessary to ensure that the patient does not lose consciousness either, hence the spells of wakefulness in effect. Pain is also required for this transformation, so anaesthesia will not be provided."

"You don't have to do this... you don't have to do this... please... I'm not that important... I'm just an accountant. Just a bean-counter..."

"It is an unfortunate aspect of Purification that sometimes, the patient will not wish to cooperate; perhaps he harbours Deviant tendencies, perhaps he has been misled into believing that the procedure is a death-sentence, or perhaps he simply fears the pain or the dangers involved. The latter is understandable – after all, Purification carries with it the risk of death – but it is our duty as servants of the Empress, as _preachers of beauty,_ to both grant the deserving forms more suited to their souls and to teach them the glory of perfection. So, occasionally we must be prepared to guide the fearful among the worthy to their rightful place in the world, by force if necessary."

"Please, someone... my family... some of them are still alive... please at least let me say goodbye..."

The mage-surgeons ignored him. If the students were at all bothered by Walter's sobbing, they certainly didn't show it. Indeed, many of them actually seemed disinterested – even _bored. _Glinda even heard a boy sitting not too far away from her hiding place mutter, "No surprise he had to be Purified, the ugly little shit," which made little sense to her: true, Walter had the plump, well-fed face of man who enjoyed his desk job a little too much, along with a paunch, a hooked nose and explosively curly hair, but calling him ugly was a bit much. Glinda had seen people like him throughout her life, and while they never would have won any beauty contests that she knew of, they weren't exactly offensive or anything like that.

"Now," Cataphlax said briskly. "I'm sure that you're all familiar with basic spells of telekinetic movement and levitation; these are necessary to expose as much of the patient's skin as possible for the first stage of the procedure." She murmured an incantation, and instantly, Walter began to float upwards, stopping perhaps two feet above the cushions, arms almost bending backwards from the restraints that kept them belted to the chair. He was crying very softly now, still asking if he could be allowed to say goodbye to his mother before things got any worse, pleading that he didn't want her to see him like-

"Next," the lecturer interrupted, "we have the first and likely the most dangerous aspect of Purification. As some of you may know, the human skin is all too easy to damage and Distortion, with even the most healthy practises leaving it open to the effects of aging: the sagging and wrinkling, the accumulation of liver spots, and other regrettable corruptions. Alas, attempts at preserving its youth and beauty have been mixed successes, even with magic: some processes only last a comparatively short period of time and require constant renewal - an unsuitable aspect to what should be a simple and elegant metamorphosis; other techniques have side-effects that make them unsuitable for this kind of work, ranging from insanity to outright Distortions of the body. There were even a rare few who succeeded in granting what they thought would be a state of eternal youth; unfortunately for them, it resulted in what I can only describe as Oscillating Age Syndrome_._ As some of you may know, the Childlike Researchers are still with us, but generally only appear in public on a day when they've stabilized at eleven years of age or older - at least since the accident."

Somewhere in the audience, a few people chuckled.

"I'm still blaming you for that, Miss Hatterton."

Raucous laughter followed.

"And then," Cataphlax continued, her voice abruptly turning solemn (or some semblance thereof), "there were those few Researchers who ultimately turned to Deviancy, those who parlayed their skills into forming the Amorphous League and its hedonist following! Those men and women who cast aside the beauty of stability and order for the decadent pleasure that only chaos could offer them; yes, their techniques were revolutionary... but ultimately, they sacrificed too much in the name of their selfish desires, and we would have sacrificed much more had we used their method of preserving beauty.

Now, the only true success in rendering the skin completely immune to aging, Distortion and injury was, of course, none other than our beloved Empress – a technique that we have not been able to replicate, sadly. So, the only viable solution is to replace the skin with a substance that does not respond to these vagaries: flesh-porcelain. Light, durable, malleable enough to substitute skin, and much more pleasing to the eye, it has been the skin of the Purified from the moment of its first synthesis. It is the skin I was privileged to assume when I was elevated from novice mage-surgeon to full graduate, and it is the skin you will wear when you finally join me in the Empress's service."

Glinda very slowly digested this, finding herself more and more incredulous with every passing moment. _Did I just hear what I thought I heard? Are they going to tear his skin off right in the middle of this lecture hall? No, no, there is absolutely no way that this is going to happen. They can't be _that_ insane, and he can't be _that_ unlucky. _Her optimism rallied, and she thought, _I mean, someone's going to rescue him, right? This'll be just like that time when Glinda rescued the Lion Cub – someone's going to protest this, put a hex on the class and get Walter out before anyone can recover. _

_Right?_

"Of course, the difficulties of ensuring the patient's survival once the removal of the skin is complete are many... as we shall see." Her smile widened. "And now, a practical demonstration..."

She crossed to Walter's side, removing her gloves as she went: her hands were very delicate, almost childlike in dimension – as the screens made clear – with tiny, rounded nails. Slowly, gently, almost tenderly, she placed both hands on the "patient's" chest, as if this was no more than a rather bizarre method of checking his heartbeat; then, Glinda saw the mage-surgeon's hands _sink_ below Walter's flesh, permeating the skin as if it were no more solid than water. Then, with a spark of magic, she drew her hands away in one smooth flourish – as if she were conjurer whisking a tablecloth off a table.

Except what she'd just whisked away wasn't a tablecloth at all, but...

Glinda's stomach lurched sickeningly, and she only narrowly stopped herself from vomiting; she wanted to look away, but the sight in the distance and on the screens had all but glued her eyes to the spectacle, and even if she could have closed the door or shut her eyes she'd never be able to blot out the horrific sight of Cataphlax holding Walter's flayed skin in her hands like an empty wetsuit, or the human-shaped mass of gore that now writhed and screamed on the operating table... or the wild applause from the students, and the fact that many of them were still happily chewing their way through bags of sweets and buckets of popcorn.

_What is _wrong_ with you people?_ She screamed silently, momentarily too angry to be horrified. _Why the hell are you cheering for these lunatics, and why has the fact that a man has just __**had his skin ripped off**__ not registered with you? Why hasn't someone protested? Why isn't someone _– anyone -_ trying to save him?!_

Pausing only to dispose of the empty skin, the mage-surgeons then went about ensuring that their "patient" survived this stage of the procedure, hurriedly explaining things as they went: the machines above the table hummed to life, surrounding Walter with antibiotic fields to prevent lethal infections, monitoring his vital signs and maintaining the temperature at a level that would keep the incoming modifications stable until they were finished; the magicians themselves cast spells to stop the skinless victim from bleeding to death, to slow his heartbeat and (again) ensure that he remained conscious.

"Now," Cataphlax announced, once the preparations were complete, "It's at this stage that we actually modify the features: by now, you will have been acquainted with the normal range of techniques we would use in these circumstances – either mundane or magical in nature, so this doesn't require too much explanation. The cheekbones need to be lifted, the nose needs to be modified towards a more acceptable shape, the legs need to be straightened, and the fat needs to be trimmed, all before we apply the new skin. We also need to provide the injections of the alchemical fluid that will preserve the body across the decades to come, though in some cases this will also require us to replace defective organs and strengthen weak muscles to avoid prolonging the existence of negative traits. Because this is by far the easiest aspect of the physical alteration, I'll hand over the lecture to Dr Rance for a much more labour-intensive aspect of the process."

So, to a standing ovation, Rance took the stage. "It is not enough merely to purge the body of all ugliness," he began solemnly. "We must also purge the mind of all that might lead it back into ugliness: neurosurgery is one such method we use, surgically removing aberrant sections of the brain if the patient has shown signs of Deviant behaviour and replacing them with more elegant substitutes. In cases where Deviancy is not evident, much more subtle methods can be used... though it will still require us to open the skull."

Ignoring Walter's agonized whimpering, the mage-surgeon doffed his gloves in much the same way as Cataphlax had and crossed to the patient's front; he gently ran a long finger along the crown of Walter's head, leaving a thin incision in both the muscles and the bone beneath. Then, whispering incantations and gesturing very subtly, Rance magically prised off the tip of his skull, exposing the brain.

Glinda swallowed hard, once again doing everything she could to keep her gorge down. Once again, she wanted to look away, but she couldn't; she was still all but hypnotized by the monstrosity unfolding in front of her.

"For this," Rance continued, "We will require an especially delicate method." He reached into the bank of machinery looming above the table, and drew what looked like a miniature eggbeater attached to the end of a long hosepipe. "This is a very special piece of technology, incorporating both ingenious mechanisms and arcane sorcery - both subtle and powerful: it is designed specifically for the purpose of thaumaturgically traumatizing sections of the brain concerned with negative emotion, and then draining any remaining neuronal activity associated with these emotions into the machine. We will still have to make physical alterations, but this obviates the need for surgery to replace the emotional centres."

He flicked a switch, and the "eggbeater" began to rotate, emitting an ominous purple light as Rance directed it at key section's of Walter's brain; slowly, the terrified whimpers that he'd been uttering for the last minute or so ground to a halt. He was still making noises, but now they were of confusion and pain rather than fear. "Thus," Rance explained, "We modify this initiate's personality traits, removing fear, anger, sorrow, indolence and greed, destroying all potential for Deviancy, and allowing what once was flawed and weak to kneel before the Empress as a new man, reborn into perfection."

A student in the first row put her hand up and asked, "Sir, is there a name for the technique that we're utilizing at the moment?"

Rance chuckled. "We've yet to provide a proper scientific title to it, I'm afraid. Although I am reliably informed that the Empress herself has bestowed upon it a nickname: she calls it 'personality dialysis.'"

As the uproarious laughter of the students rippled out across the lecture hall, Glinda very quietly shut the cupboard door, took a deep breath and threw up.

For the next five minutes, she remained slumped against the inner wall of the supply cupboard, shivering, barely holding back tears and trying to forget everything she'd just seen and heard. But there was no cleansing this nightmare from her brain: even the techniques that were currently on display probably wouldn't do much to help her drive this incident out of her mind. It wasn't just the blood, the gore, the torment and the inhumanity that was now crushing down on her: it was that one innocent phrase – the words she'd spoken almost as joke to Elphaba back at Shiz, now used as the centrepiece of this insane ritual_._ It was sick, it was cruel, it cast a pall upon every happy memory from her time at university... and, worst of all, it was a worrying sign that Glinda had been an influence on this demented country – however small.

But what if her _other_ guess was correct? What if this really was hell? Perhaps the joke was meant as a cheeky jab at how callow she'd been when she'd first said those words. Or perhaps it was an attack on how superficial she'd been in those days (_Don't delude yourself, Glinda,_ she thought bitterly; _you're still just as shallow as you were back then_). Maybe this society and its insane culture of beauty was just a twisted parody of the beliefs she'd so happily followed in her younger days: of the importance of beauty and fashion, of how the unattractive were beneath notice, and how the ugly deserved every bit of cruelty bestowed upon them. True, she'd never sunk as low as some of her friends had in _their_ acts of bullying; the young Galinda simply hadn't the brains to outwit the school pariahs, let alone bully them. But she'd done more than her fair share of mocking, teasing, excluding, and slandering, and hadn't thought it wrong or even upsetting. She'd even lied for the bullies among her clique when they'd been caught by the teachers...

And maybe that was yet another aspect of her damnation on display here: perhaps this grisly performance was an indictment of her unwillingness to act, even if it would save a life. Back at Shiz, when the lion cub had been tortured and tormented in class, she'd done nothing to stop it, even though she'd disagreed with the treatment and secretly praised Elphaba for rescuing the cub; when the Wizard's frauds and violations of Animal Rights had been revealed, she'd done next to nothing about it – in fact, when Elphaba had rebelled, Glinda's first coherent act had been to chastise her for it; when Morrible and the Wizard schemed to draw Elphaba out of hiding, Glinda did nothing to stop them. Worse, she helped them use Nessarose as bait. And when Fiyero had been captured...

Glinda put her head in her hands. It all made sense: she'd been unable to save Elphaba from the Irredeemables; she'd been unable to save the interrogation victim; and she'd been unable to save Walter. Quite simply, the opportunities for her to save _anyone_ had ended a long time ago; this was some higher power's way of telling her that if she wasn't interested in saving a life, she'd never get the chance again. This afterlife would be spent wandering from atrocity to atrocity, untouched by the horrors all around her but unable to do anything about them - even as every other soul she met suffered and died.

And it would continue for all eternity.

She shook her head, trying to convince herself that she didn't know the truth just yet, that there might be a reasonable explanation. But it didn't work.

Outside, Walter had started to laugh. Rance had now exchanged the eggbeater for a small metal probe and was slowly inserting it deep into the patient's brain. This, he explained, was to correct the indignity of the common human pain-response: while adequate as a form of warning against damage, this configuration was inelegant and often pointless in execution, too subjective to judge the level of danger, sometimes even acting as a barrier to what a human being could achieve; so, the probe would be used to reduce pain to a simple objective warning and heighten the pleasure response to the bliss that only the Purified deserved.

Water giggled idiotically. "Don't stop," he chortled, drool splashing over his skinless lips. "Don't stop, don't stop, keep going, keep going keeeeeeeep-"

He was moaning now – and most assuredly _not_ in pain.

In that moment, Glinda wanted to open the door and run, out of this lecture theatre and away from this horrorshow unfolding before her. But she knew that this would mean instant capture and eventual execution – not just for her, but probably for Omber as well. The most she could do was surreptitiously reach into one of the shelves for some cotton buds to block her ears with, cover both the vomit and the hard floor with as many surgical gowns as she could gather, and settle down on top of the makeshift bed in the hope that she might just be able to sleep through this nightmare.

* * *

_The call finally arrives at nine o'clock one rainy night eight days after the operation was complete._

"_She's awake," is all it says. "We need you here _now."

_This is the moment Glinda's been simultaneously anticipating and dreading from the moment her friend left the operating theatre on a stretcher, her body carefully shrouded to prevent anyone from seeing the results of Morrible's work. From what the specialists have told her, the procedure had been a complete success; the only problems were that their handiwork needed time to stabilize, and Elphaba had been left comatose as a result of the pain. Worse still, Glinda hasn't been allowed anywhere near her sleeping friend since then: the last time she tried, she was unceremoniously bundled out the door by overly-polite security guards, and told that she'd be informed the moment Elphaba regained consciousness._

_So, with nothing to do other than release the occasional statement to the press, she's spent the next week sitting around her palace apartment and trying not to worry. Trying, and most notably failing. Out of a sheer desperate need to give herself something to do apart from project her anxieties at Fiyero and Nessarose, she's gone to the trouble of borrowing the Grimmerie from Morrible (along with the hateful press secretary's notes on it) ostensibly in the hope that she might be able to learn something in the meantime. Of course, it wasn't until she fetched a broom from the janitors that she realized what she was actually doing._

_It's doubtful that Elphaba will ever _use_ the broom even if Glinda ever manages to successfully enchant it; after all, the Wizard won't want her flying around on something associated with her old life. No, this is to give Elphie a touch of her old confidence back, something to patch up the damage done to her personality. As for wether it'll actually work... _

_By the time Glinda arrives at the prison, it's raining so heavily that she might as well be underwater; she half expects to see fish swimming through the air as she steps out of the coach and under the safety of her umbrella. But she doesn't: instead, she sees the figure of a woman standing on the roof of the hospital building, right at the edge – with no safety rail between her and a five-story drop. And even though she can't quite discern the features (or the colour of the skin), Glinda knows that there's only one person this can possibly be._

_Hurtling indoors, she charges up the stairs as fast as humanly possible, while at the same time listening to the explanations of the doctor presiding over this disaster, _and_ fighting the urge to punch him in the face. Apparently, Elphaba had regained consciousness a little over half an hour ago; because most of the guards had dismissed the comatose witch as a lost cause, it was relatively easy for her to sneak out of the ward and onto the roof, where she'd stayed for some time until someone had happened to look out the window. Nobody was certain if she meant to escape, to commit suicide, or even if she was sane enough to want _anything_ out of this; she'd ignored all requests to come back inside, and most of the staff were too scared to try and retrieve her._

_With no other ideas, they'd called Glinda._

_So, still holding her umbrella and now armed with a tranquilizer dart gun, she tentatively scales the service gantry and climbs out onto the roof. The noise of her heels against the wet concrete must be clearly audible even over the din of the rain, but Elphaba doesn't look up at her approach; then again, she mightn't been able to see her through the blinding spotlights the orderlies have directed at her._

_The first thing that Glinda realizes is that the treatment has worked: under the gleaming lights around her, the skin of the former Wicked Witch of the West is as pale and smooth as paper, every last drop of green pigment drained away by Morrible's incantations. The second thing that occurs to her is the precise reason why this was so obvious: Elphaba is stark naked._

_Drenched from head to toe, almost blue from the cold, with slender arms outstretched and her face upturned towards the torrential rain, she stands deathly still; and she's muttering something over and over under her breath, something that can barely be heard over the storm. It's not until Glinda arrives within six feet of her that she understands the words of this mantra: "I hear she can shed her skin as easily as a snake, I hear she can shed her skin as easily as a snake, I hear she can shed her skin as easily as a snake..."_

"_Elphaba?" Glinda calls. "Are you alright?"_

_She slowly turns, revealing a face almost invisible beneath locks of dripping-wet hair. This in itself is something to behold, for Glinda has never seen Elphaba after showering or bathing, not even during their time at Shiz - understandable, given how they'd gone out of the way to avoid each other during those first few argumentative months. Elphie's glossy black hair was one of the few aspects of her appearance that could have been called attractive, especially when she could be persuaded to unbraid it; now soaked by the rain, it looks even more pleasing to the eye. Perhaps its just the enchantment of seeing her like this for the first time; perhaps its the tension and danger in the atmosphere; or maybe its just the way her hair cascades down the length of her body, just covering her breasts and-_

Focus, you idiot! _Glinda's brain screams at her. Furiously shaking herself out of her own reverie, she calls Elphaba's name again, and _this_ time, she responds._

_"Glinda," she murmurs; her voice is at peace, so calm it's almost unnerving in its serenity. "It's good to see you."_

"_Why are you out here in the rain?"_

"_Enjoying the weather; seeing if my skin reacts to wind and rain as it used do... and unless I'm wrong, I think I might just enjoying my first day of freedom." A frown appears on the barely-visible face, and there's suddenly a note of fear in her voice. "Do I look normal now? I can see my skin's no longer green, but I was too scared to look in mirror. Glinda, has anything gone wrong? Please, tell me..."_

_She looks up at last, a face emerging from beneath the veil of soaked hair: suddenly, Glinda's back at Shiz, marvelling at the makeover she's just bestowed upon Elphie; but this time, it's even more shocking, because instead of her somehow achieving something close to prettiness in spite of her green skin, it's now a case of her natural beauty finally seen unimpeded by the colouration – natural beauty that Glinda honestly hadn't seen before today. And for some reason, in that moment, she finds herself resisting the temptation__ to step back and admire Elphaba's new appearance in its entirety._

"_Why, Miss Elphaba," she said, unable to keep the astonishment from her voice. "You're beautiful."_

_She draws a pocket mirror from her purse, allowing her friend to see her transformed features reflected for the first time. _

_For a whole minute, she stands there, looking at her face as if it belongs to a complete stranger; it could be just the rain, but Glinda swears she can see tears in Elphaba's eyes in that moment._

_"What do you think?" Glinda asks, if only to break the silence. "How do you feel?"_

_Elphaba considers this for a moment. "Cleansed," she says at last. "I don't know if it's what they did to remove the colour or just being normal at last, but... I feel as though I've never been clean before today."_

"_Um, I think that might have something to do with you standing in the rain for the last few minutes, Elphie. Speaking of which, don't you think we should go indoors? You're going to catch cold if you stay out here like this."_

_Elphaba blinks. "Oh, right," she says, suddenly aware of her surroundings. She takes a very wide step back from the precipice, back under the safety of the umbrella – and Glinda fights a very powerful urge to hug her fiercely and demand that she never take risks like this ever again. But as she's led indoors, her friend beats her to it by turning around and embracing her tightly; Glinda returns it, for once not caring about her dress or the rainwater it's just been soaked with._

_"Thanks for being here for me, Glinda," Elphie whispers. "And thank you for making sure I went through with it in the end; I almost forgot our promise, I was so scared... but you didn't."_

"_Oh, it was no problem." A touch of bashful modesty here; Glinda's still a little too shocked and awed by the evening's events to respond the way she really would under the circumstances - ie: hugging Elphaba back so tightly that she might just accidentally leave bruises on her pale, perfect skin, weeping tears of joy and relief all the way. "We're not just friends anymore," she continues brightly. "We're working together, now!" And it takes all of her hard-earned political reflexes not to punch the air and whoop in triumph as she says those words._

"_Yes," Elphaba agrees, as she's ushered back into the warmth of the hospital, a nurse hastily draping a blanket over her shoulders. "We are indeed. And we have _so_ much work to do..."_

* * *

A/N: Who is Elphaba's "unmet friend?" Who released Omber from captivity? How will Glinda and her newfound ally escape from Unbridled Radiance? What has the Hellion in store for Fiyero and co? And what form will the retaliatory strike against the Deviant Nations take? Answers to these questions and much more - next chapter!


	10. Clarity

A/N: I'm sorry for the month-long wait, ladies and gents; last month was not kind to this story, especially when it came to finding time to write it around all the assessments and family events. Suffice to say, I'm just happy to have gotten this chapter up without any more fuss than was necessary; it's shortened a bit - partly because it was starting to feel ponderous and bloated, but mainly so I could stop the bigger events from bleeding into each other. With any luck, my next chapter will be here very soon, and I can only beg the indulgence of those who are desperate to see Glinda escape from Unbridled Radiance once and for all. In the meantime, please continue furnishing me with your wonderful reviews.

To Zelene2004, I'm going to have to remain silent as regards to the pairings in this story - it might give too much away. It might very well be a Gelphie (I can neither confirm nor deny), but the question is, will it be the protagonist version of the two who fall in love, or will it be their alternate selves? Please forgive me for drawing out the suspense.

Nami Swannn, I'm glad you found the chapter just as disturbing and nauseating as Glinda no doubt found it, and I'm also very grateful that you attribute it to my ability as a writer. Hopefully, you find this latest chapter up to standards in its ability to inspire fear, excitement and - above all - enjoyment.

And finally, to the latest Guest (though given that you were reviewing chapter 4, it might take a little while for you to reach this message), I'm glad you like the Hellion. As I've said before, I love writing descriptions, especially if they're of horrific creatures and mutant monstrosities. With any luck, I can continue to illustrate the revulsion and horror inherent in the other nightmarish inhabitants of this alternate reality - but as always, you'll have to be the judge.

Now, without further ado, the tenth chapter - the latest in a story that is now at 100000 words! Read, Review, and above all, Enjoy!

Disclaimer: Wicked cannot be mine, and thus is not mine. Ipso facto.

* * *

Stifling an exhausted yawn, Elphaba found herself once again peering down at the results of the spell she'd just cast – as if there was something she'd missed on her last three glimpses.

Just as the note suggested, she'd waited until midnight to cast the provided spell, whiling away all the intervening hours with dinner, tentative conversation, and reading. In all honesty, this laborious process of wasting time had been easier than she'd expected; normally, with something so important waiting on the horizon, anxiety would have had her pacing the room like a caged animal and snapping at every passing sound – and perhaps the mystery of this world's origins would have made things even worse, keeping her too preoccupied to focus on anything other than her own maudlin musings. But that fleeting but glorious moment of finding the broomstick had driven most of her anxieties out of her head, allowing her to pass the hours before midnight almost pleasantly.

Of course, it helped that the apartment was equipped with almost everything that Elphaba had been unable to enjoy during her rebellion: after spending the last year or so being forced to sleep in whatever muddy ditch would hide her from patrolling guardsmen, the luxury of soft furnishings and warm beds very nearly drove her to sleep through the next few hours. And as for the en-suite, Elphaba very nearly spent an hour in the bath, soaking in the warm water and scrubbing away all the dirt and the grime that had accumulated since her last wash in the nearest convenient pond (and enjoying the benefits of actually having a _proper_ lavatory with toilet paper instead of a hole in the ground and a handful of damp leaves). For good measure, there were clean clothes waiting for her in the wardrobe, all of them in her size and all of them black as night. The bookshelves also provided plenty of diversion, even though none of the contents were spell-books or even non-fictional – obviously a safety measure to prevent the suspected spies from learning too much about the Deviant Nations; by and large, the apartment's library was a collection of pulp novels and award-winning bestsellers, typical for a place meant to accommodate guests but for Elphaba, who usually had only enough spare time to reread a few passages from whatever dog-eared texts she'd managed to carry with her, it was paradise. And the dinner she'd enjoyed... it wasn't until she'd caught the whiff of roast meat and simmering gravy in the air that she'd realized just how much she'd missed properly-cooked meals. She even went on to order dessert once she was finished.

With so much to keep the two prisoners occupied, the moments when Dorothy was able to overcome her nervousness and Elphaba was able to overcome her reluctance to speak with her were few and far between; most conversations centred around how the meeting with the Great Mentor had gone (paranoid suspicions aside), where she'd gotten the idea of flying around on a broomstick, how easy it was to learn magic, and if Chistery always made those strange noises. Elphaba, who knew of Chistery's problematic attempts to speak coherently, politely declined to answer that last one.

Eventually, Dorothy had tottered off to bed, leaving Elphaba to ready the components of the spell for the moment when the clock struck 12:00 and the anti-magic enchantments finally disappeared.

After spending the remaining hour rehearsing the incantation, she barely had the presence of mind to appreciate the all-too-brief electrical crackle to the air of the magic returning; she simple grasped the strand of blonde hair in one hand, dipped a finger into the inkwell and – chanting the words on the parchment – let a few small drops of ink fall upon the map.

Slowly, the droplets had trickled along the length of the paper, the energies of the spell keeping them from staining the map until they'd arrived at their destination and marked out Glinda's precise location.

And now, at fifteen minutes past the hour, Elphaba was still puzzling over the spell's results: according to the notes on the parchment, the spell was supposed to pinpoint the target's exact location on the map, complete with an indicator showing their current physical condition. So, the good news was that Glinda had apparently ended up some distance from Exemplar's Imperial Palace, wounded but not seriously so; even better, she was apparently on the south-western end of the city, which the map indicated was far away from the city's prisons and military complexes. As a final bonus, the spell would remain effective for the next twenty-eight hours, and until then, the enchanted ink would continue to follow Glinda's movements across the map.

On the other hand, there was one drawback that brought all the results of the spell into question: having pinpointed Glinda in Unbridled Radiance, the spell had pinpointed her _again_ in Greenspectre.

Now, this result could only be Glinda's alternate self, AKA the Great Mentor; but did that mean that mean that the two were so alike that the spell couldn't detect any difference?

It clearly wasn't based on biological tracking then... but that brought another issue to attention: now that Elphaba thought about it, the idea that one of Glinda's hairs had somehow ended up on her clothes and stayed there over the last few tempestuous hours before her arrival in Greenspectre didn't seem terribly likely. In fact, it was much more probable that the hair was actually from the Mentor, in which case, who the _hell_ had left these components out for Elphaba to find? Who in this palace would have the motive and the ability to gather up a section of text from the Grimmerie, a broomstick enchanted with a spell from the same damn-near untranslatable book, and a hair taken from the head of the city's administrator and hero – _all without anyone asking questions?_

She took a deep breath and wondered if it was too late in the evening to order a large brandy from room service. Or perhaps it was too early in the morning to do so, or...

_Oh sweet _Oz,_ go to sleep and stop worrying, you halfwit. _

There was a yawn from the doorway: Dorothy was standing there, now dressed in the grey pyjamas and dressing gown the servants had provided for her, bleary eyes half-shut and hair a tangled mess. "Find anything?" she mumbled sleepily.

In spite of herself, Elphaba almost smiled. Hours ago, the girl would have never have even thought to be so casual around her, and probably the only reason she wasn't currently treading on eggshells as before was because she was simply too tired to be scared. "I think so," she said out loud. "I'd have thought you'd be asleep by now."

"I tried. Something woke me up a little while ago – I think there's a storm brewing. I never could sleep through them."

This was news to Elphaba, who certainly hadn't noticed any change in the weather during the last few minutes; then again, she'd been so preoccupied with casting the spell and pondering its results, missing the sound of thunder wouldn't have been entirely impossible. But when she pushed aside the curtains and peered out the window, the glittering lights of the city below them illuminated a night sky entirely without stormclouds; indeed, the sky above Greenspectre was quite clear, though the stars were largely obscured by the dazzling array of streetlights, shop windows and neon signs that coruscated below – not to mention the small fleet of airships that still patrolled the skyline, and the few gaudy sky-yachts that barrelled shambolically across the horizon on the way to seedier-looking districts.

For a moment or two, she found herself idly wondering what it could be like down there: was it anything like the Emerald City? Did Greenspectre have the same bewildering assortment of libraries, museums, dress salons, bazaars, parks, cafes, restaurants, bars, nightclubs and red-light districts? Were those labyrinthine streets still thronged with people enjoying the nightlife of the Deviant Nations? And more to the point, what were those people even like? She'd been told that self-mutilators like the Irredeemables weren't the norm around here, but that didn't necessarily mean that the average citizen was anything like the people Elphaba had met back in Oz. And as she wondered, she found herself absently wishing that she could walk those streets and roam Greenspectre just as she had the Emerald City before it. More fervently, she wished that Glinda could be there to explore the city with her. It was a silly wish, mainly driven by curiosity and loneliness more than any sane impulse, but-

A bright flash from above dragged her attention away from the city: there, thousands of feet above the highest spires of the city, a pale, almost ephemeral glow was slowly spreading across the night sky like iridescent fog.

As it continued to expand across the skyline, there was another flash of light from its billowing depths... and a second later, _something_ dropped from the bank of mist; large, metallic and almost bullet-shaped, it plummeted for almost twenty seconds before it crashed head-on into the roof of one of the smaller towers and erupted with a thunderous bang. Then another object fell from the cloud, this one falling all the way to the street below; two more followed, one embedding itself in the side of a building, the other colliding with a passing airship and sending it on a spiralling death-dive towards the ground.

Dorothy was suddenly standing right beside her, peering through the window in astonishment at the chaos unfolding below them. "What's happening?" she asked.

"Isn't it obvious?" said Elphaba, only just managing to keep the weary frustration out of her voice. "We're under attack!"

"But what are those things dropping from the-"

"Artillery shells."

Dorothy looked blank.

"Explosive capsules," Elphaba clarified, and then realized that her current audience was a) a child, and b) brought up on a farm and probably not familiar with military-grade ordinance. "Missiles," she simplified. "Bombs – look, they fall from the sky and explode when they hit the ground, call them whatever the hell you want. One way or another, we're being bombed, probably by Unbridled Radiance or whatever other enemies these people have gathered in the last few decades." A thought struck her. "And what you felt wasn't a storm, either," she muttered. "It was a spell being cast: those bombs aren't being dropped or shot at this city, they're being teleported into the sky above it!"

_Thus handily bypassing both the defences at the border and whatever defences this city has around it. Clever, clever bastards..._

Another blast shook Elphaba out of her reverie: the bombs were falling faster now, and in greater numbers too, at a rate of fifteen every second. Greenspectre was well aware of the danger too, for a low, droning siren was slowly rippling out across the city, alerting everyone with a functioning set of eardrums and almost drowning out the ominous whistle of bombs in flight; the usual assortment of commercial zeppelins was now replaced by a fleet of small, well-equipped dirigibles that floated from building to building, extinguishing the flames as quickly as they could. But the bombs fell faster than they could fly, for the garish city lights were now almost overshadowed by columns of thick black smoke from every blast-zone, accompanied by the vivid orange glow of fires, either from the explosions themselves or the blazes that resulted.

But the fires and bomb-blasts rippling out across the city weren't the only dangers; as the creeping barrage thundered closer the palace, she noticed that each explosion was accompanied not only by the standard deafening bang, shockwave, fireball, hail of shrapnel and column of smoke, but by a thick cloud of vividly-coloured gas_._

Much like the fog that marked the boundaries of the teleportation spell in the sky above, the gas appeared to glow; but unlike the fog's haunting grey colour, it was a deep rosy hue. It crept across the sky, becoming distinct from the smoke as the searchlights of emergency airships swept across it; to Elphaba's eyes, the gas-clouds at first seemed oddly festive, almost inviting. But then she heard the screams and the wails of people enveloped by the cloud, and saw the ships lurching drunkenly out of it, their decks awash with blood...

"What are we going to do?" Dorothy whispered, a note of panic in her voice.

"If this had happened a minute or two ago, I'd have suggested blasting the window open and flying away on the broomstick. But the nullifying enchantments are back in effect; the broom still works, but it'll take hours for us to get through the glass without magic."

"So, we're trapped."

"Not necessarily. Hopefully, if we really are in danger, the palace staff will just have us evacuated." _Unless, of course, the Great Mentor's decided I really_ am_ a spy and that leaving me out in the path of bombardment is the easiest way to get rid of me._

An airship, freshly escaped from the depths of a gas-cloud, swung violently to the left, flipped almost upside-down and crashed into one of the lowest towers of the palace, barely three hundred feet from the window. As the iron prow of the ship tore through the masonry and the ship's fuel ignited with a flash of eye-searing light and a hollow _whoosh,_ Elphaba's horrified gaze was finally drawn away from the window by a familiar voice from behind her yelping, "Ell ebba! Ooor Ooo-en!"

It turned out to be Chistery, half-knuckling half-flying into the room, hooting at the top of his voice "Ooor Ooo-en! Ooor Ooo-en!"

"What did he say?"

Elphaba thought for a moment, attempting to translate the flying monkey's shouts into comprehensible speech. Given Chistery's somewhat catastrophic difficulty with consonants, it took a few critical seconds and the distant sound of a palace guard hollering the steps to the evacuation process for Elphaba to finally realize that "Ooor Ooo-en" actually meant "Door Open."

She was caught between thanking Chistery for the good news and communicating the aforementioned good news to Dorothy, when she heard the distinctive whistle of another falling bomb – echoing from a point almost right above their heads and getting steadily louder.

"RUN!" Elphaba shouted.

For a second, Dorothy froze, partly out of sleep-induced wooziness but mostly out of deer-in-the-headlights shock. Her mouth flapped open of its own accord, and she muttered "Wha-"

"SHUT UP AND RUN FOR THE DOOR!"

Suddenly no longer frozen, the girl spun around in a bewildered circle, took to her heels and charged towards the door, only _just_ managing to outpace Chistery's desperate flapping.

Elphaba was halfway through following them out of the apartment when she suddenly remembered: the map and broomstick; she couldn't afford to risk their destruction – without the map, she'd be blind to Glinda's movements, and without the broom she'd have no reliable way of getting to her anyway.

So, with the distant whistle growing louder and louder by the second, she hastily backtracked into the bedroom: there, she scooped the map off the bed, hastily rolling it up as she moved, then quickly descend to her knees to retrieve the broom from under the bed. Finally, with the map in one hand and the broom in the other, she got to her feet and sprinted away to freedom, hoping against hope that she'd be able to use the two items before any of the guards started asking questions.

She'd just rounded the corner, the open door barely a few feet away, when the now-deafening whistle finally squeaked to a stop, and through the barred windows Elphaba caught a glimpse of something huge and metallic thundering into the side of the apartment. But instead of exploding – or even hitting the building – the bomb stopped a few feet away from the wall, embedded in a thick, viscous field of magic. A moment later, as Elphaba watched in open astonishment, it exploded quite harmlessly, the gouts of flames and the shower of shrapnel instantly absorbed by the shield.

_Oh,_ she thought, sighing with relief. _They've finally got their defences reorganized. Guess I was worrying over nothing._

And then the shockwave blasted out of the exploding bomb and flung Elphaba across the apartment like a tantrum-prone child flinging a toy across a nursery. Cartwheeling blindly through the air, she bounced off the kitchen counter, tumbled over the dinner table, soared clean through two of the nearest chairs and into the living room, her brief journey finally ending in a bone-jarring collision with the right-hand wall.

Then, as she lay amidst the splintered remains of a mahogany dining chair, absently wondering how long it would take for the mages to add _kinetic_ protection to the barrier, she suddenly noticed the smell.

Looking up in horror, she finally saw the cherry-red gas pouring through the broken windows and slowly filling the room around her... and realized, _too late,_ that she'd instinctively taken one deep, self-destructive breath of contaminated air.

The cloud grew thicker, red-tinted vapour slowly dominating her vision, drawing her away from the noise and blanketing her mind in numbing fog.

Soon, all she could see was red.

Deep, dark, comforting red...

* * *

"Over here, Dorothy!"

Skidding to a halt, Dorothy blinked and realized that the two figures waiting for her at the end of the corridor were none other than Vara and Harker; it wasn't easy to recognize them, for their faces were almost invisible beneath the goggles and tubing of thick canvas face-masks and their voices (already drowned out by the occasional bomb blast from overhead) were so muffled they were barely comprehensible. Charging up and down the stairwell behind them were dozens of other men and women, many of them dressed in similar masks – or else simply delivering them to anyone unlucky enough to be unprotected, lugging them from one end of the hall to the next in rickety iron trolleys.

"Come on," Vara called. "It's time we were going."

"What are you two doing here?"

"The Mentor's havin' this wing of the palace evacuated until the bombing stops and the place doesn't run the risk of collapsing altogether," said Harker, subconsciously adjusting his mask. "She wants you and that friend of yours out of the line of fire, too. Speakin' of which, where is she?"

Dorothy turned, and realized that while the flying monkey had followed her out of the apartment easily enough, Elphaba was nowhere in sight. Having firmly understood the need to put her head down and run, she hadn't even looked back for the last few minutes; she'd heard the bang echoing along the corridor behind her, but she hadn't thought that the woman might have actually been caught in the explosion. But now that she thought about it, did that mean that she was –

"Oh no," she whispered, her mind suddenly flooded with a very complicated mixture of shock, guilt, apprehension and relief – a holdover from a time when she hadn't been able to think of the Witch as anything other than a monster; admittedly, Dorothy wasn't entirely sure what to make of her at the best of times (or _now,_ for that matter), but whoever or whatever she was, she didn't deserve to burn to death. For a second or two, she stood there, calling Elphaba's name; then, her limbs moving almost of their own accord, she lunged back down the corridor. Almost immediately, two hands clamped down hard on Dorothy's shoulders – Vara's scale-studded palm fastening itself on the right and Harker's gnarled old twig-fingers wrapping around the left.

"Not just yet," said Vara, firmly. "We need to wait until they've got the barrier properly solidified."

"What?"

"Keeps the bombs off the palace," Harker explained. "It's all done with magic; useful thing, but they need to build it up one layer at a time – one for the actual shells an' the shrapnel, one for the fire, one for the concussion, one for the gas, and one for any magical energies they might have sent with 'em. Bit like peeling an onion, but backwards."

Hastily driving away the mental image of a giant onion forming around the palace, Dorothy asked, "But the gas - why are the bombs filled with it? What does it _do?_"

Harker was opening his mouth to reply when Vara elbowed him sharply in the ribs and gave him a look which seemed to say "not in front of impressionable children." The old man's eyeless face quirked into a sheepish grin, and he finally answered, "You don't want to know, girl. Trust me on this."

Vara coughed loudly. "And I don't think Chistery wants to know either." She turned, hastily grabbed a spare mask off a passing trolley, and handed it to the flying monkey. "Help him get that on as quickly as possible," she advised Dorothy. "Once they've got the barriers up, we'll be protected from any further bombardment, but there's a good chance that it'll end up trapping pockets of gas inside the palace."

"Shouldn't I be wearing one then?" Dorothy asked, as she helped fasten the mask over Chistery's face. "Shouldn't _everyone?_ I mean, why aren't all the servants wearing masks as well, if it's really that dangerous?"

Behind the visor of her mask, Vara's eyes narrowed in anger and disgust. "It's only dangerous to Irredeemables like me and Harker; when it's around people who haven't been modified or "Distorted," the gas might as well be thin air for all the damage it does. But as soon as the gas reaches someone who deviates from their precious ideals of beauty, it activates - then it's all over before you know it."

Dorothy considered this for a good ten seconds before replying. "So... the gas can't hurt me, in other words?"

"That's pretty much the long and short of it, but- HEY!"

Before either of them could tighten their grip, Dorothy slipped free of Vara and Harker's restraining hands and sprinted back down the corridor towards the apartment; she wasn't entire sure what she was doing, or even if she could find the correct door out of the twenty-five royal guest chambers she'd passed on her way out, but leaving Elphaba to die wasn't on the agenda at this point. Admittedly, if she really was in serious danger – trapped, burning to death, crushed, or whatever else this bombing attack could do to her – there probably wasn't a lot that Dorothy could do to help, but at this point her conscience was in command and it was still kicking her over leaving the Witch behind in the first place.

Before long, she recognized the red pillars that had marked the right-hand turn leading to their apartment's particular corner of this maze; with a hiss of effort she rounded the corner, outpacing the pursuing Irredeemables in one single guilt-fuelled burst of speed and charging on towards what was left of her temporary home in the palace. They were still chasing her, but with any luck, she'd have the time to make sure that Elphaba was okay before they caught up.

It turned out that finding her way was a lot easier than she'd expected, for the previous explosion had swept a huge pile of broken glass through the doorway and into the corridor, marking the apartment with a glittering heap of jagged glass shards. Painfully aware that she wasn't wearing shoes, Dorothy stood in front of the apartment and called Elphaba's name; hearing no answer, she plucked up her courage and gingerly stepped over the glass and through the doorway.

Inside, the apartment turned out to be surprisingly intact, apart from the smashed windows and splintered furniture. There were no fires, no sign that the roof might collapse, and what little gas remained had thinned to a vague pinkish tinge to the air; even the sound of the bombing outside was beginning to fade a little. Much more troubling was the fact that the apartment appeared to be deserted.

And then she heard the noise: a low, watery _scraping_ sound, punctuated by harsh, desperate whisperings. It was coming from the living room, so, pausing only to listen for the sound of footsteps in the distance, Dorothy tiptoed forward.

Elphaba was kneeling in the centre of the room, half-obscured by a mass of toppled furniture: from what little Dorothy could see of her, she was hunched low over the floor; and with the fingernails of her right hand, she was now frantically slashing and tearing at something just out of view– producing the nerve-rending scraping sound she'd heard a moment ago. Occasionally, she would stop and whisper something almost incomprehensible to herself, before launching back into the attack with a vengeance.

"Elphaba?" Dorothy whispered.

A terrifying silence descended on the apartment as its sole occupant finally looked up. It took all of Dorothy's willpower not to recoil at the sight of Elphaba's blank gaze: as frightening as she'd found the Witch's baleful stare during the last couple of days, there was no denying that she'd seen intelligence and heartfelt emotion in it. There was nothing of the sort in _these_ glazed eyes, no hint that they'd actually seen anything, or even that there might actually be a mind at work behind them. Worse still was the vacant, idiotic grin she wore: it didn't show emotion either, not even the grief that Elphaba had tried to hide behind a smile not too long ago; the only thing this painful-looking rictus showed was _teeth._

"It's almost off," she whispered, giving absolutely no indication that she was talking to anyone other than herself. "It's almost off and everything will be perfect. Nessa won't be ashamed. Father won't hate me. Mother won't be silent any longer. I can make everything right. I can make _everything_ right."

Dorothy blinked, mind reeling in shock. It was hardly the first time she'd found herself learning more about the Witch than she'd thought possible, but _this_ was a different story altogether; even those brief moments of sorrow when she'd spoken of Nessarose and her absent friend were nothing compared to this devastating sentence. Hearing that she had a family beyond Nessarose wasn't that much of a surprise, though it was pretty hard to imagine what such a family could have been like, or even what the green girl could have been like as a child for that matter; but hearing that her sister – the one that Elphaba had been prepared to kill or worse for – had been _ashamed_ of her, and that her father had outright hated her... well, that hinted at things that Dorothy wasn't entirely sure she wanted to know about.

It was so out-of-the-blue that she had to wonder if Elphaba had hit her head on something during the bomb-blast and was just babbling nonsense. In fact, she actually considered asking what this strange confession meant, even if questioning the Witch on such a personal topic naturally ran the risk of getting on her bad side all over again; but then she heard the distant rumble of explosions beyond the palace wall, and realized she had to hurry.

She was opening her mouth to suggest that, at the very least, it might be a good idea to get out of here before they were all blown to kingdom come. But then, she happened to glance down and notice the puddle of blood that had soaked into the carpet around her, and with a heart-stopping jolt of shock, realized what Elphaba had been doing.

The thing she'd been attacking with her fingernails was her own left arm.

Having already shredded the sleeve of her dress to ribbons, she was now busily digging a series of deep, gory furrows from her shoulder to her wrist. And worse still, she was still worrying at them, tearing the gashes wider and wider with every scrape. Dorothy found herself fighting the urge to do several hundred million different things at once, because she honestly didn't know what she was supposed to do next in order to make the awful sight unfolding before her eyes _go away._ She wanted to scream, to shut her eyes, to run for her life, to try and stop Elphaba from hurting herself any further if such a thing were possible, but she couldn't decide because the only thing she could concentrate on in that moment was the horrible noise of fingernails raking through flesh.

But all of a sudden, Elphaba was shaking her head. "Nails won't be enough," she said softly. "Need something more." And, reaching into the heap of debris that had accumulated around her, she held out a long, jagged shard of glass.

In that moment, the spell was broken.

Taking the deepest breath she'd ever taken in her entire life, Dorothy opened her mouth, and in a voice that could probably be heard three cities away, screamed "VAAAAAAAARAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!"

And then the world disappeared behind a charging mass of figures, all hurrying to restrain the witch.

* * *

_She is standing on a balcony; the sky above is lost amidst storm clouds, thunder crashes through the air like celestial percussion, and sheets of ice-cold rain pour down upon her._

_Naked as the day she was born, she stands there with her arms outstretched towards the night sky, silently marvelling at the spectacle of her own skin, now drained of the grotesquery that once earmarked her as a pariah._

_She is cleansed._

_She is purified._

_She is reborn._

_And for the first time since the Wizard's men shot her down, she is entirely without fear._

* * *

This time, it was a spate of coughing that dragged her out of the dream. And it wasn't just any ordinary tickle at the back of the throat either: this was one step removed from vomiting, a hacking, wheezing, throat-scouring, lung-clenching explosion of coughing that left her slumped against the wall, struggling for breath like the proverbial fish out of water. Her walls of her throat had been rasped red-raw by the attempts to clear her lungs, her back ached from colliding with the wall, her arms were alight with searing pain from gods-only-knew-what, and she was distinctly aware that she hadn't even opened her eyes yet and her day was already off to a bad start.

She felt a hand on her shoulder, and somewhere overhead a voice murmured, "Easy now, miss. You've just recovered from a very extensive dose of Clarity. No sudden movements for a minute, if you will; give yourself time to recover."

Elphaba vaguely discerned a glass of something invitingly cold being put to her lips, and she eagerly drank, taking in the chilled water with huge gulps in a desperate attempt to douse the burning pain in her throat. She almost choked once or twice, she drank so quickly, but eventually she was able to put the glass aside (clumsily, for there seemed to be something wrong with the fingers of her right hand) and breathe easily at last.

Then she remembered the fact that she still hadn't managed to get her eyes open yet; groaning wearily, she prised her eyelids open and found herself back in the royal apartment, now slumped against the living room wall amidst the splintered furniture and broken glass. The explosions from outside had finally ceased, but the bombing had clearly left their mark: on top of the rubble scattered across the apartment and the whiff of smoke in the air, the overhead lights had given way under the barrage and left the room in near-total darkness. However, the palace staff was clearly taking steps to repair the damage, because the room was full of people sweeping up the debris, removing the damaged furniture, replacing the window panes, and providing candles and lanterns wherever light was needed. There were even a couple of dour-looking magicians surveying the walls and ceiling of the apartment with an increasingly pedantic series of diagnostic spells, checking for any signs of instability.

Meanwhile, several other occupants had gathered around Elphaba and were now peering down at her with undisguised concern: along with the expected figures of Dorothy and Chistery, Vara and Harker were also looming over her – the eyeless face of the latter somehow managing to perfectly convey the wariness in his expression.

"What happened?" she groaned.

"We got bombed," said Harker flatly.

Elphaba rolled her eyes. "Thank you for stating the very obvious. Now, at the risk of sounding overly confrontational, _what the hell happened while I was unconscious?_ I mean, I can tell that the bombing stopped, but how much damage did it do?"

Vara's already grave expression somehow darkened. "The death toll's still coming in: we've got over seven hundred people dead, almost two thirds of them Irredeemables. It's been about four hours since the attack ended; you've been out cold for almost the same amount of time, at least once we managed to bring in a doctor and keep you from getting any worse... once we could spare one from all the other medics we've got patching up injuries about the palace."

"Was it really that bad?"

"What, your condition or the casualties?"

"... the latter."

Vara opened her mouth to answer, but Harker beat her two it. "They caught us off guard," he said grimly. "They took as many shots as they could before we could alter the shields and stop the bombs from falling on us: we've got reports of similar raids on military bases outside the city. That was mainly firebombs for destroyin' buildings and equipment, but they used the damn gas there too; bastards wanted to be thorough."

"The gas," Elphaba whispered. "I breathed it in, didn't I? What was it, anyw-"

"Clarity," answered a voice from somewhere to the left. "One of the more... discriminating of Unbridled Radiance's weapons; it's not quite as openly destructive as the explosive shells or battle magicians they've employed in the past, but then again, it wasn't meant to be. As for the damage that was done... well, I'm sure you'll see it when we finally get you back on your feet. In the meantime, would you be so kind as to hold still for a minute? I need to check for any lingering symptoms of gas exposure."

As it happened there was a fifth member to this huddle that Elphaba didn't recognize, at least at first; but as he knelt forward to examine her face for injuries, the glow from a nearby candle was cast upon his face, and she realized that this was none other than the Great Mentor's personal physician. And oddly enough, now that she no longer had the shocking presence of the Mentor dominating the room, she couldn't help but take in the details of the man's appearance for the first time: at some point since the disaster had began, he'd doffed his immaculate white coat and black rubber gloves (but kept the opaque spectacles) and headed into the fray in a rather sedate button-up shirt and trousers.

Dressed as he was, it was quite obvious that the physician was startlingly thin, the veiny, pallid skin on his arms and face drawn so tightly across the bones that Elphaba had to wonder if the man wasn't suffering from some kind of degenerative illness. Certainly, he already looked like a walking corpse: his face was so gaunt and hairless it could have easily passed for a skull if not for the long, dagger-like nose.

The physician's arms drew her attention, too: even from here it was obvious that they were very long – to the point that his hands would have been dangling past his knees had he been standing upright. More unusually, they moved so fluidly throughout the examination that at times they seemed almost boneless, like the tentacles of an octopus. The man's fingers were also long and thin, sometimes just as sinuous and serpentine as his arms but at other times as crooked and pattering as the legs of a spider. This transition happened so many times in the next minute that Elphaba couldn't help wondering if this physician was literally changing the shape of his body in order to better perform certain operations. In fact, once, she was certain she saw the vein-studded skin of his face briefly warp and twist, his sparse flesh appearing to ripple eerily across his skull in a way that should have been impossible for any muscle of the face to accomplish. But when she looked again, his face had returned to normal. Perhaps it had been a trick of the light and nothing more; and yet...

"No sign of cranial trauma," the physician murmured; his voice was calm and without affect, almost a monotone. "No magical damage... and best of all, no lingering symptoms of the gas." Behind him, Vara and Harker finally released the breaths they'd been holding for the last minute. "Injuries aside," he continued, "you're in perfect health."

"Injuries?" Elphaba echoed.

"Due to be treated very shortly, ma'am. I thought it prudent that I kept them under stasis gauze up until I could be sure that you weren't in the mood to stab me to death halfway through the procedure."

He took her left arm in one tendril-fingered hand and gently drew it into the light – and with a jolt of surprise, Elphaba realized that the offending limb was now swathed in thick, blood-sodden bandages. "What the hell did _that?"_ she asked, shock almost turning the question into a shout.

"You did," said Dorothy. She'd been silent and ashen-faced over the last five minutes, at times all but hiding behind Chistery. Now that she was finally speaking, her voice was a hoarse, trembling whisper that sounded dangerously close to tears, and not the familiar bawling that had so frustrated Elphaba in the past.

"_I?_ Why would I do something like tha-"

"_I don't know!"_ Dorothy hissed, the fear in her voice unexpectedly joined by anger. "You were hurting yourself! You were tearing your arm open with your own fingernails – look at _them_ if you don't believe me – and you were going to use a piece of glass on yourself before Vara and Harker stopped you! You were saying... you were saying... you were saying..."

She stopped, her nervous energy seemingly exhausted.

Elphaba very slowly looked down at the fingers of her right hand: they were coated with a thick layer of dried blood, the nails torn and blunted from constant impact against flesh. More blood was caked under the nails themselves, accompanied by tiny giblets of something that could only be _flesh._

"Oz," Elphaba breathed. "How... why did I...?"

"Clarity," the physician explained smoothly. "As I said, it's a very discriminating weapon: it only affects those who have been "Distorted" from Unbridled' Radiance's true image, or have been modified in ways they don't approve of. As soon as a victim fitting this description inhales the gas, it swiftly begins to affect the brain, disrupting normal thought processes and replacing them with implanted suggestions – most of them to the effect of "I am abnormal and I must rid myself of this abnormality by any means necessary." If that's not enough, it has a tendency to help along this process by enhancing certain emotions; self-loathing for example, or despair. Quite an elegant solution, when you think about it: the Empress' troops already distance themselves from the battlefield through gas weaponry, but Clarity grants them the luxury of saying that they didn't kill anyone at all. They just... 'enlightened' them."

Minutes passed, as Elphaba considered this. "So I qualify as Distorted, then?" she said at last.

A ghastly smile split the physician's face in half. "The exquisite irony is not lost on me," he said. "If only Radiance's bombers knew who they were attacking..."

"Yes, I'm pretty sure that'd be hilarious if I hadn't just shredded my arm to confetti as a result. It'd be even funnier if there probably hadn't been civilian casualties as a result, too. Plus, it's not as if they actually bombed the city just to get at me, right?" A thought struck her, and as the physician began tentatively peeling the bandages away from her arm, she voiced it: "Why is it so specific about targeting?"

At this, Dorothy finally recovered a smidgen of her old inquisitiveness. "I was wondering that ever since you told me about it," she said to Vara. "I mean, you're at war so I can kind of understand them dropping bombs on the city. But why the gas? Why use something that only hurts some people and not others–"

"They call us "Irredeemable" for a good reason, girl," Harker muttered solemnly. "As far as the Empress is concerned, we can't be forgiven for refusing beauty and embracin' ugliness; they want us dead – every last one of us. And yeah, Unbridled Radiance might give deformed foundlings and scarred veterans a chance to be beautiful, but they'll swear black and blue that any Distorted that were killed here this evening gave up the right to mercy when they sided with us, even if the poor bastards were kids who never even heard their offer of true beauty. But as for people who haven't been modified or distorted, Unbridled Radiance wants to give _them _a chance to change sides and accept "redemption." So the gas doesn't target 'em."

"Oh." She breathed a sigh of something not unlike relief. "Fair enough then..."

"At least until the next strike, anyway."

"What?"

"This won't be the first attack on civilian territory: they've given the redeemable folk a chance to surrender and warned them on what'll happen to enemies of Unbridled Radiance. So, they'll wait a while for people to accept the offer. Then, once they've given it enough time and seen a couple of refugees trickling over the border, they'll launch another strike on civilian territory. And this time, it'll be firebombs and cyanide gas from beginning to end and anyone who refused "their generous offer" will die with all the other Deviants."

"But how do you know all this?" There was a subtle hint of outrage in Dorothy's voice, now, a touch of angry disbelief; Elphaba found herself distinctly reminded of the way Glinda had tried to deny the Wizard's involvement in Nessa's murder: she'd spoken with the same tone of voice then, too – the "I know they've done horrible things, but surely they can't have stooped _that _low" voice. "How do you know that they'd kill Distorted people for not siding with them? How do you know they'd kill the... the redeemable people for not taking the chance?"

"From _first-hand experience_."

A dreadful silence followed.

"You mean –"

"I can neither confirm nor deny..." Harker wearily recited.

The physician looked up from unbinding the last of the bandages, and suddenly cleared his throat for attention. "With all due respect, I think it might be time I sought out some privacy to continue this operation; Elphaba, if you would follow me...?"

Thankfully, her collision with the wall hadn't done any permanent damage to her spine, so Elphaba was able to get to her feet without too much difficulty, though it _did_ take a little while to recover enough of her balance to walk without tottering all over the place like a month-old giraffe. Once she was upright and moving, she was immediately escorted out of the living room and into the bathroom, where the physician unceremoniously sat her down on the edge of the bathtub and removed the final layer of bandages around her arm.

The wounds were nothing short of extraordinary: in all the time she'd spent fighting the Wizard, Elphaba had never received an injury quite like this; from shoulder to wrist, her arm was criss-crossed from front to back with dozens of bloody lacerations torn through the flesh, some of them deep enough to expose tiny slivers of bone.

About the only thing that had stopped her from bleeding to death were the magically-impregnated bandages her arm had been swathed in, and now they were off, the tears were already starting to ooze again. And even if the physician (who was currently prodding her wounds with his bare fingertips in open defiance of any rational kind of medical training) could actually solve the problem without resorting to amputation, Elphaba would still be facing a very long recovery time, and probably a permanent scar for good measure.

Just as she was beginning to get used to the idea of spending the next week or so with her arm in bandages, she realized something much worse: this recovery process would almost certainly scupper any attempts at rescuing Glinda; even if she'd be able to fly the broomstick with her hands bandaged up, by the time her stay in the hospital was up, the magic of the tracking spell would have well and truly worn off.

After all, this little operation was a prelude to that, wasn't it?

She glanced down at the physician, who was now absent-mindedly rubbing his hands together. "Don't you need any medical equipment for this?" she asked tentatively.

"If the injuries were serious, I probably would. I think the stasis gauze was enough, don't you? Now, hold still for a minute, Elphaba; this is a somewhat delicate process."

"How can this not be serious-?"

Suddenly, the physician's boneless fingers were in motion again: slithering fluidly across the tattered flesh of Elphaba's left wrist, they carried on upwards in a slow and methodical ascent towards the shoulder, tapering fingertips gently brushing each wound as they climbed. But to Elphaba's astonishment, every single injury that the physician touched instantly began to heal.

Looking closer, she realized it actually wasn't as simple as that: as the fingers touched each wound, they pinched the edges of the lacerations together, drawing them shut as if her flesh was nothing more than clay. Before her very eyes, tiny magical flourishes expressed in each subtle movement of the doctor's fingers sealed weeping blood vessels, wove torn muscles back together, and grafted webs of conjured tissue over the deeper injuries. And for the most part, it was almost completely painless; indeed, she spent most of the operation numb from the shoulder downwards to anything except for the vague itching she felt whenever one of the wounds closed - and of course, the distant spidery tiptoe of unearthly fingers along her arm.

Trying not to think of poisonous spiders crawling up her elbow, she found herself studying the physician's technique, curious to learn what spells he might be using for this procedure. To her surprise, she recognized quite a few of them: some of them Elphaba had learned back in Morrible's magic class; others were more sophisticated, drawing upon esoteric spellbooks that she'd had the good fortune to discover during her long years of rebellion against the Wizard (most of them either stolen from Ozian libraries or gifted to her by Animal benefactors). There were even a few spells that looked as though they'd been cobbled together from bits and pieces of other incantations, combining different words or gestures for different effects. And while there were several techniques she honestly didn't recognize at all, there was one thing that Elphaba knew for a fact that the physician _wasn't_ using: the Grimmerie.

Was this because its spells were too complicated or too volatile for safe usage... or had this world's version of the Grimmerie been stolen or destroyed before any of the Deviant Nations' magicians had a chance to study it?

_That disadvantage won't last long, _she thought grimly. _They've got _my_ copy now, haven't they?_

Within minutes, the process was complete and Elphaba was completely healed: all that was left of the horrendous injuries that had all but torn her arm open was a smooth expanse of green skin. _And I never thought I'd be happy to see _that_ at any point in my life_.

"Can you move your arm?" the physician asked.

Operating almost on reflex, Elphaba stretched out her arm, swivelling her hand from left to right.

"Do you feel any pain? Any difficulty in performing certain movements?"

"Not that I can tell at this point..."

She glanced down, and saw that the doctor was now cleaning and repairing the tattered stumps of the fingernails on her right hand. "Please don't tell anyone about this," he said, almost sheepishly. "As amusing as the title would be, 'manicurist' just doesn't have the same ring to it as 'mage-surgeon.'"

"So you're one of the mage-surgeons the Irredeemables told me about?"

"I doubt they would have told you about me: sadly, acting as physician to the Mentor keeps me away from the usual work of alterations that the Irredeemables commonly request, unless they want something truly extraordinary. Of course, it also keeps me off the lecture circuit, so I suppose there's always a silver lining."

He cracked a smile that almost looked human, and with one last flourish of magic, concluded the healing process and shook Elphaba's hand. "Doctor Kiln," he introduced himself.

"I'm –"

"Yes, I know: you're Elphaba Thropp, formerly known as the Wicked Witch of the West."

Her heart suddenly leaped. "You believe me?"

"I didn't say that," Kiln soothed. "I just thought that, considering that no other name has presented itself, the name of our Mentor's apparently long-dead friend will suffice for now."

Elphaba took a deep breath. She had a sneaking feeling that pursuing this avenue of conversation was going to lead her right back into an argument over her true identity, and after starting the day with exposure to mind-controlling gas and self-mutilation, she really wasn't in the mood for any further excitement. But by this time, she was curious about how it would be possible for someone to mimic her appearance through magical alteration. So she asked, "Would it really be that easy for someone to make themselves look like me? Or like Elphaba, if you're feeling picky."

"For a mage-surgeon of sufficient experience and ability, it'd depend entirely upon the materials you had to work with, but generally speaking, the operation would take at least five hours at the most. Of course, I don't think anyone too closely aligned with Unbridled Radiance would willingly have themselves altered in such a way, but let's leave theories of mercenary activity aside for now."

"Five hours? That's all it'd take for a perfect impersonation?"

"And that's assuming you're not actually a mage-surgeon yourself," said Kiln, his unearthly monotone suddenly playful and teasing. "I think I could easily mimic that face if I had the time and details to alter myself accordingly."

"Hang on, _alter yourself?_ You can do that?" She suddenly recalled all the times she'd seen him apparently change the bone structure of his arms, seen the skin of his face ripple; in fact, now that she thought about it, Kiln actually looked a few inches taller than she remembered from their first meeting. "Okay, okay, stupid question," she sighed wearily. "So you're not just an expert at modifying human bodies, but you're also a shapeshifter?"

"Not exactly. It's not shapeshifting in its most classic form, or the kind practiced by the Amorphous League – and sadly, it's not nearly as versatile or as quick as either. But the ability to manipulate flesh and bone has its uses, as you've no doubt noticed. And permanent modifications can be... enjoyable."

"But why would want to make permanent modifications to _yourself?_ I mean, Vara told me all about why she and the other Irredeemables had themselves altered, but you aren't a member of the organization and you're not bound by the same creed as them, are you?"

"No. Technically, I'm just a member of the Mentor's inner retinue."

"Then why would you do this sort of thing to yourself?"

Kiln shrugged. "It all comes down to curiosity, I suppose. When you've had a few years to get used to powers like these, you eventually start to wonder what it would be like feel your own flesh shift and warp beneath your fingertips, to feel it flow like melting candle wax. So, you start to experiment."

"In what way?"

"Well, in my profession, it's quite common for graduating student-mages to display their mastery of our techniques by adding personalized touches to their appearance: maybe a crest or a plume here and there; a different skin texture or colour; or maybe something more exotic. And that's just the beginning. I mean, do you really think I came by this face or these limbs naturally?" He spread his arms wide, and by way of a demonstration, folded his fingers backwards across his hands until they were all but flatted against his wrists. "And I'm quite sedate by the standards of my profession, believe it or not," he added, casually returning his bone structure to normal. "Some of my colleagues have implanted themselves with tools to assist in more complicated operations, or even weapons for the days when they have to work on the front lines. And on occasion, some mage-surgeons decide to reinvent themselves as different people altogether; they fake their deaths, give themselves new faces, and rejoin society under new names."

In spite of herself, Elphaba managed a smile. "If you can change your identity that easily, why the hell are you worrying about being saddled with the title of 'manicurist'?"

Trying valiantly not to smile, the physician shook his head with an exaggerated air of solemnity and disappointment. "I should have never have told you about that."

"Oh, I don't know; if you're still acting as her personal physician, I think Glinda might appreciate that sort of thi-"

There was a pause, as Elphaba realized her mistake.

"She's still the same person, you know," said Kiln gently. "She might have changed a great deal, but it's still her under all the scars and stitches."

"You could have fooled me. If the Mentor really does have any of the old Glinda left about her, she's doing everything she can to hide it." She sighed. "Then again, she still thinks I'm a spy, so maybe it's not so surprising after all."

The physician remained tactfully silent.

"But has she always been that bitter? I can understand her being angry with me, but was the bitterness just a result of the war, or... or was it because of me again? I mean, if me and the Empress really are the same person, then..." She shook her head, struggling not to let the familiar haze of depression descend upon her, and trying her very best to think of a response.

"You're not _that_ much alike," Kiln pointed out. "I've actually met the Empress in person, and there's more to the differences between the two of you than skin colour alone. I won't lie: some mannerisms are frighteningly similar, some personality traits are almost identical, and your spellcasting technique might as well be a direct replica of hers... but you're most certainly not her. And I very much doubt you're to blame for the Mentor's bitterness: in truth, she's been that way for quite a while now. The War's been hard on her, as you could see; one spy being audacious enough to impersonate her best friend wouldn't be enough to turn her into a curmudgeon. As for what she'll make of you when she's gathered all the evidence together? That remains to be seen."

Elphaba thought carefully for a moment or two, slowly mulling over everything she'd been told. Then, a question occurred to her – something that had been sitting right in front of her for about thirty seconds, the logical conclusions of which had only just occurred to her.

"You met the Empress in person," she whispered. "How long ago was this? Who did you work for back then? And how did you get close enough to the Empress to notice her behaviour?"

Behind the opaque black lenses of his glasses, Kiln's eyes widened.

"You said some mage-surgeons completely reinvent themselves, give themselves new names and faces: were _you_ one of them?"

In the tremulous pause that followed, the physician's expression _rippled, _black veins coursing wildly across his gleaming scalp.

"I... I think it might be time for me to, uh, see if there are any other patients requiring aid," he stammered. "In any event, I wouldn't worry too much about unanswered questions; they'll probably be resolved sooner than you think."

He turned, and hurried away, his physique hastily rearranging itself as he walked.

Elphaba followed him, fully intent on seeing if she could squeeze some answers out of Kiln before the night grew any older.

However, as they entered the living room, they happened to pass two workmen who were putting the finishing touches to the apartment by replacing the last few remaining chunks of ruined furniture: as the two burly labourers seized the glass-shredded sofa by both ends and hauled it out of the apartment, something slid out from under of the cushions, tumbled off the sofa and landed right in the middle of the floor in front of Elphaba.

It was the broomstick, having presumably been knocked out of her hand when the shockwave had hit. For good measure, the map was also there, crumpled around the broomstick's handle but otherwise intact.

Unfortunately, it was now sitting right in the middle of the floor – in full view of Kiln.

Time _stopped._

Elphaba found herself hurriedly examining almost every possible outcome of this discovery: the broomstick and map would almost certainly be confiscated, that much was certain; after all, nobody with half a brain in their head would willingly leave an escape vehicle in the cell with her. But that might not be the only possible repercussion: there could be punishments, investigations, interrogations, or even a transfer to a more secure location. And maybe, if she was _really_ unlucky, this could be the proof the Mentor needed to have her declared a spy and executed.

And just to add a final cherry to the proverbial sundae of inevitability, she'd been caught by someone absolutely guaranteed to report back to the Mentor.

So far, there didn't seem to be many options on her side: she could feel the anti-magic enchantments descending on the apartment already, once again weighing down on her psyche like a blanket made of woven lead. And unless she was willing to try and fight Kiln to the death over the broomstick – which would probably take too long and risk getting the attention of the guards anyway – there'd be nothing to stop him from reaching out and claiming the broom as evidence.

But perhaps it would be best if she _did_ try and fight for it: if this was the moment where she was guaranteed an execution, she'd much prefer to face it kicking and screaming. After spending Oz-only-knew how many times expecting to go out peacefully, resigned to the fact that she'd never see Glinda again, the knowledge that Glinda was still alive and within her reach was galvanizing her into action again: she was ready to fight the chance to see her again.

_Yes! _She thought furiously, her mental processes suddenly running on pure adrenaline. _Just grab for the broom, you skull-faced bastard. I'm not going out quietly _this_ time._

For three agonizing seconds, the physician stared down at the broom on the floor.

Finally, he looked up: at some point in the last few seconds he'd removed his glasses, and now he gazed back at her with inexplicably familiar blue eyes.

And to Elphaba's utter amazement, he winked_._

He _winked._

Then, without a word of explanation, he kicked the broom out of sight under one of the freshly-arrived couches and strolled gracefully out of the apartment with a strange smile on his cadaverous face.

For what felt like eons, Elphaba remained where she was, her body frozen from the toes up. Then, letting out a breath that had been sitting in her lungs for almost a minute, she concertinaed backwards onto the couch, put her head in her hands and groaned.

_What the hell are you playing at, doctor? Why did you just do that?_

_And what about everything else you've done since I first met you? Why did you stand up for me while the Mentor was dressing me down? Why did you decide to attend to my injuries ahead of anyone else in the palace? Why did you call me by my first name? And how do you know I was the Wicked Witch of the West? Did the Mentor tell you that... or did you actually live through that time and manage to avoid losing your memories of it?_

_Who are you?_

_Who _were _you?_

_Whose side are you on, really?_

She looked up, and suddenly became aware of the environment around her: the apartment was almost empty except for the few remaining workmen and technicians, Vara and Harker having left some time ago. And through the freshly-replaced windows nearby, she once again had a perfect view of the devastation occurring outside: however, by this time, the bombing had well and truly subsided; across the battered cityscape, fires were slowly being extinguished and the lights were slowly returning to normal. The parade of revellers trickling back and forth from the residential zone to the red-light district had been replaced by a steady stream of white-hulled airships, many of them announcing (through loud hailers) that they were carrying medical supplies for certain districts. Other airships strayed much closer to the palace, and just past the vast crates of equipment stacked across their decks, she could just about discern the people milling about upon them – all boiler-suited technicians and builders, presumably on their way to repair the damage and help rebuild.

All around the palace, Greenspectre was slowly binding its wounds and returning to work. But was that a sign of the Deviant Nations' utter indomitability... or was it a sign that they'd been at war so long that this was all part of the routine?

She shook her head, and decided to go on watching. After all, she had quite a while before the enchantments deactivated again, and it wasn't likely she'd be spending any of that time asleep.

* * *

A/N: Who is the mysterious Doctor Kiln? Guess away, dear readers, - detail them in the reviews if you like; your input keeps my corroded old heart going!


	11. Light At The End Of The Tunnel

A/N: Busy month, ladies and gentlemen, busy month. This was another hard slog, but at least I didn't have to chainsaw it apart like the other chapter, and on the bright side, I had a lot of fun writing it. We're going to be confronting a wide array of events and characters in this particular chapter, and I hope it doesn't become too confusing - and certainly not boring, I pray.

Suffice to say, we'll be starting off the next ten chapters with a bang. I hope you enjoy, ladies and gentlemen, and I encourage you to provide your reviews, opinions and constructive critiques - including those of any mistakes on my part (Given how early in the morning I upload these things, I always seem to leave a few typoes here and there).

So, without further ado, read, review, and above all, enjoy!

Disclaimer: I don't own Wicked or Oz. I'd never be able to hang on to all of it.

* * *

Glinda's attempts to sleep were not very successful, to say the least.

Even if the bottom of the cupboard _hadn't_ been cramped, poorly-cushioned and fragrant with the smell of drying vomit, she still wouldn't have been able to sleep. Even if she wasn't being jabbed painfully in the thigh by the pieces of her wand that she'd stupidly decided to keep with her, she wouldn't have been able to sleep. Even if she hadn't been recovering from her last terrifying encounter with such a cramped space, she still wouldn't have been able to sleep. Even if the wound on her torso _hadn't _been aching and threatening to tear open once again, she still wouldn't have been able to sleep. Even if her maddened fantasy had come true and the cupboard had turned out to be large enough to allow her to properly lie down on one of the many feather mattresses stored within and soothe the pain in her midriff with an icepack left nearby, sleep would have been impossible.

And the reason for this was because _the earplugs weren't working._

Somehow, the noise of the operation sliced through the cotton wool just as easily as a pair of scissors would; every time she came close to nodding off, a horrible sound from the lecture hall outside shook her back into wakefulness: the watery hiss of motorized blades tearing through flesh, the crack of bones snapping as the treatment extended to them, the high-pitched whine of an electric drill, the students laughing and applauding... and perhaps worst of all, Walter's breathless, orgasmic giggling. And invariably, she couldn't resist taking a peek to see what had just happened, and the things she'd seen in these brief glimpses were more than enough to keep her from sleeping ever again:

She'd seen Cataphlax altering Walter's physique by tearing handfuls of fat and other unwanted tissues from his skinless paunch – idly flinging the discarded mulch over her shoulder (much to the audience's amusement). She'd seen the two lecturers gently prising the ribcage open so that they could modify the heart, idly running their magic-dripping fingers through internal organs as they went. She'd seen a cauldron bubbling on the stage behind them, filled to the brim with something that looked uncannily like human flesh, liquefied and somehow still animated. She'd seen the patient's face being subtly altered through both magic and surgical instruments, the features slowly taking on new shapes before her very eyes; the fact that Walter didn't resist or even move throughout this grisly procedure somehow made it even worse. Towards the end of the whole grisly display, she'd seen dozens upon dozens of tubes being implanted into Walter's muscles and internal organs, soaking them in the alchemical preparation that would – supposedly – preserve the bodies of the Purified over the centuries to come.

But that wasn't the very worst sight: that had occurred when Cataphlax had reached into Walter's right eye socket and somehow lifted the entire eyeball free of his skull; then, with every subtle detail visible on the colossal screens, a tiny drop of blue fluid had been applied to the eye – turning it glassy and doll-like, the iris suddenly glowing as if lit from within. Glinda had managed to keep her gorge down until this little performance was repeated with the left eye, whereupon she'd leaned forward and thrown up for the second time in as many hours.

And throughout every single monstrous spectacle, Cataphlax and Ranse had been _talking_: they'd lectured on what to do with the discarded flesh and bone, how to augment the organs where necessary, how to restrain difficult patients, altering the minds of unique cases without destroying their value, the history of the mechanisms and techniques, the Purified's potential for true immortality, the origins and compositions of the alchemical compound that induced it... And, as they'd begun threading delicate wires into the whorls and spirals of the patient's brain, they'd talked about "The Empress's Revelation" and "the enlightenment of true beauty" that they would bestow through this method.

It was at this point that Walter was at his most vocal – and Glinda found it necessary to block her ears again.

Once they were finished exposing Walter's hopelessly maltreated brain to Oz-only-knew what, the two mage-surgeons finally returned the top of his skull to its rightful place. Then, they took the broiling cauldron from the back of the stage and began carefully applying its ominous-looking contents (which turned out to be molten flesh-porcelain) to the skinless body, slathering it over the bare muscles and moulding it over the face until the features almost looked human again. As Cataphlax and Ranse went about ensuring that the flesh-porcelain was properly distributed across the carcass, Glinda finally shut the door and retreated into yet another not-so-comfortable attempt to sleep.

This time, she was successful.

It took quite a while, but with physical exhaustion weighing down on her like a small continent, she finally achieved slumber - or at the very least, something similar enough to mimic it. Frazzled, nervous, guilt-plagued, wounded and queasy though she may have been, she nevertheless managed to doze lightly, her body curled into a foetal ball with her knees tucked under her chin, her ears alert for the sound of footsteps approaching the hiding place. It was an awkward, fearful sleep, usually only lasting for half an hour at a time, but it was the best her aching body could manage under the circumstances.

And while she didn't exactly dream _per se_, she found her thoughts drifting – as she'd always known they would – towards the atrocities she'd seen in the lecture hall, the horrible act of Purification repeated before her mind's eye. But this time, it wasn't Cataphlax or Ranse doing these horrible things: it was Glinda herself, just as she'd been after that night at the Ozdust Ballroom, right down to the pink dress and the astronomically-expensive shoes. And as her younger self went about re-enacting the atrocities that had taken place, she recited that same lecture she'd given to Elphaba back at Shiz, punctuating every childish giggle and every naive turn of phrase with another mutilation.

And this time, Glinda didn't need to wait for her dream-self to open Walter's skull and go about performing what she referred to as "Personality Dialysis." By now, she _knew_ that on some level she was to blame for the madhouse she'd arrived in; even if she hadn't taken part in its creation directly, she'd almost certainly influenced it. _Unless of course I'm in hell and experiencing the first stage of my eternal punishment,_ she thought blearily through the haze of daydreams.

A loud thump jarred her into wakefulness, and she found herself back in the cupboard, still curled into a ball and aching worse than ever.

At first, she could only blearily wonder what had awoken her. Then, she heard the thump again, and realized with a fresh thrill of horror that it had come from somewhere just above her head, less than a few inches away. Someone (almost certainly a guard or, if she was really unlucky, one of the mage-surgeons) was hammering on the door of the cupboard, demanding that she open up. For twelve seconds, she sat there in total silence, not even daring to breathe in case the sound gave her away. Then, just as she was beginning to think that the guard had lost interest, the door began to creak open: flailing wildly, she tried to move, to slip out through the door before the guards outside had a chance to grab her, but she only succeeded in losing her balance and splaying herself helplessly across the inside of the cupboard like an upended tortoise.

She could only look up in terror as the door finally swung aside, flooding the cupboard with light: when Glinda's eyes finally adjusted to the glare of the lecture hall, she found herself staring up in terror at the wrench-toting silhouette of...

"Sorry I'm late," panted Omber. "Getting back here was trickier than I thought it'd be. But the good news is, I got the disguises." S/he gestured vaguely at the buddle under his/her right arm; for good measure, s/he was now dressed in a dark blue boilersuit – complete with a cap just large enough to conceal the face at a distance.

Glinda sagged in relief. "Are they gone?" she asked, awkwardly clambering to her feet. "Are we alone?"

"For the moment; the lecture ended about six hours ago, as far as I can tell. They had some guards marching about the corridors for a while afterwards – I spent the hour and a half dodging the tin-canned bastards – but I think they're gone by now."

"Six hours? What time is it now?"

"Oh, about 5:30 AM, give or take a few minutes. Everyone's gone back to their dormitories for the morning by now; even the cleaners won't be back for a while."

Sure enough, the hall was deserted: no trace remained of the students, the mage-surgeons, or the unfortunate Walter Luddestone. For good measure, every last inch of the operating theatre had been thoroughly cleaned and disinfected; the glass had been polished, the tiles had been scrubbed, the table had been returned to its normal "dentist's chair" position, and all the equipment that Cataplax and Ranse had brought with them had been cleared away. In fact, if Glinda didn't know better, she would have thought that the monstrous operation had never happened.

Then she noticed the screens: perhaps as an appropriate note to end the seminar on, a still image from the operation had been projected onto the two vast screens, and thanks to someone forgetting to switch the projectors off, it was this very image that now began searing itself into Glinda's memory. Even though she hadn't been awake to see the operation end, she knew without a shadow of a doubt that she was looking at its successful result: the new Walter Luddestone was tall, trim, handsome, and without even a hint of the heavy paunch and explosive mop of curly hair that had distinguished his former self. His once-sallow skin was now an immaculate shell of flesh-porcelain, his erratic hair now sculpted into black, elegantly curled perfection, and the dull grey eyes that had bulged and darted so wildly throughout the operation were now deathly still and almost silver in colour.

And he was smiling: clad in only in a white cotton robe, fresh from an operation that by rights should have left him dead or worse, the newly-Purified Walter Luddestone was _smiling._

Glinda felt her gorge rise again, and took a very deep breath to steady her nerves. Omber must have noticed the change in her expression, because s/he glanced up at the screen and sighed deeply. "You saw it happening, then?" s/he asked.

Glinda nodded. She didn't trust herself to speak.

There was a painful silence as Omber once again visibly grappled with what to say next. After about a minute of agitatedly glancing from one end of the hall to the other, the most s/he was able to say was, "Are you going to be alright? For the moment, I mean," s/he hastily amended. "Nobody's alright after seeing this sort of thing for the first time, not for a good long while. I mean, I wasn't after I saw it for the first time, but... But do you think you're ready to get moving?"

"Mmmnn," said Glinda.

"Are you sure?"

"Yes."

"Positive?"

"_Yes._ Why do you need my permission for this, Omber?"

"Simple: if we want out of this city, we're going to have to travel in broad daylight and we can't afford to attract attention – even if it's only by looking suspiciously panicky."

"I'm not panicky," snapped Glinda indignantly.

"You're trembling."

Something in the back of Glinda's head snapped. "Well, _of course I'm trembling!_" she almost screamed. "In case you hadn't noticed, I ended up in the one place in the room that was smaller than those coffins we were locked in last night, and I had to stay there for the last few hours! _And_ I wasn't drugged this time and I'd never thought I'd miss that sort of thing, _and_ I had to worry about getting caught, and I had to see what those b-b-bastards were doing to... to..."

This time, she at least had the luxury of a wastebasket to vomit into. Once the dreadful lurching in her stomach had finally subsided, she leaned against the wall for a time, panting for breath and trying vainly not to think of skinless, bloodied shapes writhing under harsh fluorescent light.

"I don't understand," she babbled, suddenly on the verge of tears. "They tore off his skin and nobody tried to stop them and they were laughing and cheering and they just tore him to pieces and none of them had a problem with it and..." She took a very deep breath, and tried once again to explain herself, this time at a much slower pace. "Why didn't anyone do anything to stop it? Why wasn't anyone upset? I'd have understood if people were sick or crying, I mean, they were watching someone get cut open on stage. But they weren't. They were laughing- _laughing. _What in the name of the Time Dragon Clock is _wrong_ with this country?"

As inept as s/he could be in delicate social situations, Omber at least had the decency to wait for Glinda to calm a bit further before asking, "I take it you've never seen anything like this before?"

"Never." Once again, she recalled the day when Doctor Dillamond had been fired and the Wizard's specialist had attempted to provide a demonstration of the new Animal-control techniques: quite apart from the fact that Elphaba had brought the so-called class to an end before it could really begin, none of the Shiz students had shown much in the way of enthusiasm or loyalty to the specialist; true, they hadn't dared to interfere, but they'd at least been disturbed by the brutal treatment of the lion cub. Even the most rabidly conservative of them hadn't sunk so low as to applaud the vicious display, or laugh at the cub's pained yelps.

"Does anyone outside the university know about this?" she asked. "Apart from the government, of course. I'm just saying, if the public found out what Purification really –"

"They already know," said Omber, looking even gloomier than usual.

"You're kidding."

"I wish, Glinda, I really wish. But yeah, there've been official explanations of the Purification surgery for decades, now; they don't go into too much detail, but by now I think just about everyone in the empire knows about what happens in "the noble metamorphosis" you saw. A few people complain here and there, but for the most part, nobody's interested in rocking the boat. So, leaking the details to the press probably wouldn't have much of an effect."

S/he shrugged. "Sorry to disappoint."

Glinda closed her eyes, and fought the overpowering urge to bang her head against the wall. "At this point," she said wearily, "I'll be happy enough if we can just get out of here and over the border into a country that hasn't gone completely mad." _Assuming it's possible to escape from eternal punishment,_ she mused.

"Well, they say some weird things about the Deviant Nations, but-"

"Could you _please_ just hand me my disguise? I'd like to leave as soon as feasifiably possible before any guards start sniffing around again." As Omber handed her the boiler suit, she happened to glance at the oversized wrench the engineer had brought with him. "And another thing, do you really need to keep that with you? I mean, if the authorities aren't fooled by the mechanic's outfits, what makes you think that'll help with the disguise?"

Omber smiled mirthlessly. "Who said I'd use it for _disguise?"_

* * *

Minutes later, the two "mechanics" crept out of the lecture hall and began the slow and tentative journey towards the gates; because walking straight across the vast courtyard would have brought them within eyeshot of the mage-surgeons' offices (or face-to-face with overly curious security guards) they had to take a somewhat roundabout route through the many passageways that connected the university complex in one way or another.

It took them out of the lavish wood-panelled corridor of the lecture hall, down a very long flight of stairs into a colossal basement dominated by the monolithic boilers that heated the university, then up a significantly shorter flight of stairs at the far end, along a bare concrete hallway, through a set of heavy metal doors and into the reinforced concrete bunker that served as the campus's magical training grounds ("For wannabe pioneers in destructive spellcraft," Omber remarked). After ten minutes of navigating the maze of sandbag barriers, rubber practice mannequins, and complicated-looking instruments, they managed to find a service duct in the wall that took them through a cramped network of cable-strung shafts and into the university archives; thankfully, beyond the vast rows of filing cabinets there was an elevator that took them into the main hub of classrooms; tiptoeing their way along the silent corridors, they made their way through no less than three entire floors of empty classrooms (most of them identical to the kind Glinda had seen at Shiz) before finally locating a secluded walkway leading into the next building.

Most of the journey was almost completely silent except for Omber's whispered explanations or directions, and the occasional grunt and hiss of effort as they navigated the more difficult routes (or the bloodcurdling swearword as Omber went about picking the lock or sabotaging the alarm). Eventually, however, Glinda found herself leaning against the wall and breaking the silence with a gasp of, "Are we nearly there yet?"

"Almost; we're in the university museum – right next to the front gates. All we've got to do is find the door and we're out of here. Good news is, we don't need to hurry: this place is only open every other day of the week, so we probably won't get caught."

"Wonderful."

She took a deep breath, tried to ignore the growing pain in her stomach (and the itch of the oversized boilersuit on her bare skin, and the chafed feet earned from a pair of shoes at least five sizes too big, _and_ the increasingly embarrassing fact that she'd had to hide her hair under the cap for this disguise to work), and looked around at the room they'd emerged into.

Because there were no windows in the building and all the lights had been switched off long before midnight, the museum was almost pitch black except for the feeble glow of the torch Omber had brought with him/her. There were a few vague lights here and there, perhaps the crack between the door and floor, or from some exhibit that happened to glow in the dark, but they were only enough to give Glinda an inkling of how large this place was: from the brief glimpse she'd seen of it out on the walkway, she'd known that this had been quite a sizeable building, perhaps four stories high, topped with a roof that tapered into a needle-like spire, and built like a fortress. Inside, she could only peer at the tiny lights illuminating the blackness and _just_ discern the vastness of the corridors, the high ceilings and distant walls, and the hulking, ominous shapes looming out at her from the left and right.

However, as the beam of Omber's torch swept through the darkness, details of the room around them slowly emerged from the shadows: large glass display cases, their contents barely visible; walls clustered with framed photographs and paintings; hulking suits of armour, at once imposing and beautiful; arcane-looking weapons hanging from the wall, some of them so complicated that it was impossible to guess at how they worked – if they were meant to work at all.

"What is all this stuff? And why are they keeping it at a school and not at an actual museum?"

"Prestige and advertising."

"What?"

"Prestige and... look, most of the exhibits here were invented, discovered, or seized by the university by right of dead man's boots: they get to show it off, attract new students and wealthy sponsors – and draw in some cash from paying visitors. I mean, look at this..."

The torch beam swung to the left, where one of the walls was almost completely dominated by a huge oil painting (And a small plaque titling it _"Our Mighty Empress Drives Out The Deviant Horde and Undoes Their Blasphemous Mentor) _: from what little Glinda could see by the torchlight, the painting depicted a epic battle taking place in the city square of a gleaming metropolis; the heroes and the villains of the piece were fairly obvious – one wore gleaming suits of armour trimmed with silver and gold, the other wore tattered black cloaks that barely succeeded in hiding a monstrous array of fanged mouths, clawed hands, tentacles and nightmarishly mutilated torsos. But the focus of the painting wasn't on the battle itself (which the heroes were clearly winning) but the leaders of the two sides: the villain commander was a monstrous figure, half-woman half-spider, with all eight of her long skeletal limbs alight with magical energy, and a hideous face twisted further by an expression of deepest loathing.

The hero commander was none other than the Empress – her face replicated perfectly on canvas, augmented only by a glowing nimbus around her head. In fact, the expression of triumph on her face was so similar to the one Elphaba had worn on the day she'd first taken flight that Glinda had to look away.

"Painted by an Exemplar U graduate," Omber explained. "Hence, the University keeps its hands on the original to draw in the crowds."

"Ah. I see." Glinda wasn't really listening at that point; her eyes were still fixed on the life-sized recreation of Elphaba's face painted on the canvas. _The __**Empress's **__face,_ she corrected herself. _She's not Elphaba, she's the Empress. Try to remember that, Bubblehead._

Desperate to focus on something else _–_ _anything,_ so long as it wasn't the awful puzzle of the Empress's identity_ –_, she pointed almost at random and asked, "And what about that?"

Gradually, Omber's torch illuminated a display case containing an ornate silver staff; though snapped cleanly in two, it was still an extraordinary sight: perhaps five feet long, tipped with a pair of batlike wings and a clenched, talon-fingered hand, it still hummed with magical energy even in its current state. "Wow," Omber breathed. "I didn't think they'd get their hands on _that._ That's a war trophy from one of the really famous battles with the Deviant Nations; The Battle of the Blazing Sky, I think. Or was it the Battle of the Scarred Mountain? Anyway, that belonged to their Great Mentor – the Seditionist's Sceptre, we called it. Last I looked, the university people were still arguing with the War Museum over who had the rights to this old thing... but I've been away for too long."

"Is this hall just an exhibit on the war, or something like that?"

"Well, this floor of the museum, more accurately."

"Then let's move on," Glinda sighed. "I think I've seen more than enough."

So, they tiptoed along in silence, Omber keeping the torch firmly aimed at the path straight ahead, and Glinda doing her best not to look at any of the objects they passed; thankfully, the few she looked closely at didn't appear to be too closely related to the Empress for the most part: most of them were war trophies like the Seditionist's Sceptre, legendary weapons and armour pieces taken from Unbridled Radiance's enemies; others were enshrined relics from U.R.'s own forces – weapons and armour again, but this time belonging to martyred soldiers who'd numbered among the university's alumni. Alongside corroded rifles and tattered uniforms, however, the ghastly waxen face of a death-mask would occasionally appear in the torchlight, making Glinda jump in surprise.

After carrying on for perhaps thirty feet alongside rusting artillery pieces and framed campaign maps, a flight of stairs led the two of them down into another floor of displays and artefacts, this one apparently concerning Purification and its many decades of development. From what little she could see of them, the objects on display down here were much more gruesome – or at least, as gruesome as Unbridled Radiance's standards of beauty would allow: rows of disturbingly lifelike facemasks hanging from otherwise featureless mannequins; glass spheres swirling with gaseous figures, all of them pounding their ethereal fists against the walls of their prisons; human arms and legs inexplicably rendered in glittering crystal; plaster models of dissected human bodies, some of them open in grisly cross-section; there was even a trio embalmed corpses lying in state.

Glinda could only shudder, remembering how much she'd hated visits to museums when she was a child, and try not to imagine those eerily-perfect cadavers sitting up in their caskets.

Omber, to his/her credit, didn't seem especially interested in examining or explaining to the awful sights around them. So, they simply avoided the guts of the exhibit altogether, hurrying along the corridor towards the next flight of stairs leading to the exit; but, it was at that point that the two of them happened to turn a corner into a room dominated by something that made them stop dead in their tracks - Glinda only just managing to stifle a yelp of shock.

In the very centre of the room, a huge glass tank sat atop an equally sizeable plinth. It was filled to the brim with green embalming fluid, luminous enough to cast a haunting emerald glow across the room – along with the twisted shadow of the horribly mutilated corpse floating within. As far as Glinda could tell, it might have once been human, but it was almost impossible to guess at its age or even its gender. Its left arm was contorted into a grotesque parody of a bird's wing, the hand crushed into the tip of the "wingbone" and the length of the arm coated with feathers; the left leg was almost that of a bird's, too, with about half of the toes sharpened and elongated into the talons of an eagle. The crooked torso was also feathered extensively, at least on the left side; on the _right_ side, it was little more than a rubbery blob of boneless flesh. The limbs of the body's right half were equally deformed, with both arm and leg caught in the act of withering into fingerless blobs of sickly-grey meat. The face was arguably the worst, for it was the most human: true, the eyes were colossal and took up about two thirds of the head; true the mouth was shrunken, the miniscule lips hardening into a beak... but the rest of the bald, tattooed skull was still human and all the more horrific for it.

And it was then, just as Glinda was struggling to keep the contents of her stomach from making another appearance, she heard footsteps echoing towards her; a moment later, not one but _two_ figures stepped out of the darkness. Even in the feeble green light, there was no mistaking the eerie sheen to their skin or their unearthly glowing eyes. For six awful seconds, the duo regarded Glinda with a look of undisguised amusement; then, one of the two languidly waved a hand, magically switching on the overhead lights. And Glinda could only hang her head in despair as she realized just who they'd been caught by.

Dr Cataphlax grinned back at her; even though she'd swapped the blood-splattered surgical gown for a crisp pinstriped grey jacket and skirt in the hours since the operation, she somehow looked more unsettling than ever. "A most impressive sight, yes?" she trilled, gesturing vaguely at the corpse. "A Deviant Distorted of his own free will, his degradation forever preserved in the only way the Radiant Laws will permit: as a corpse; a fitting testament to the fate that he brought upon himself, and the punishment awaiting those like him."

Her gazed shifted towards Omber, whose once-morose face was now a mask of smouldering hatred, the androgynous features twisted into an enraged scowl. "Perhaps you will join him in this very museum once we are finished here? Miss Glinda, please step away from the Distorted and remain calm - this will not take long. And please don't run: you tripped several dozen silent alarms on your way through the campus; the Imperial Centre for Vigilance has already been contacted."

"Her Radiance's Finest shall be here shortly," Dr Ranse chimed in; he'd also donned a new outfit since the lecture – an equally immaculate tailored suit and tie, exactly the same shade of grey as his counterparts'. "And they'll be most interested to know how the two of you escaped from the Sepulchre. But perhaps your colleague located a dose of the potion that the laboratory staff overlooked? Perhaps it attempted to convert you to the Deviant cause along the way?" He tutted disapprovingly: "The Deviant cannot be trusted, Miss Glinda; the Empress would be most upset if you learned this lesson from Landless rather than from us."

"What the hell are you talking about?" Glinda demanded, having finally found her voice. "What potion? What cause? And why are you calling Omber 'it'?"

Cataphlax tittered girlishly. "Surely you didn't think that the Deviant's androgynous form was the result of anything _natural?"_ She was circling the room now, drifting steadily closer to Glinda with every step, her voice somehow expressing disgust even though it remained high and bubbly. "No, Miss Glinda: your friend is a member of a noted Deviant sect – one of the lowest and most contemptible ever to appear within our borders."

"And what exactly made us the lowest?" Omber snarled. "How exactly are we worse than terrorist groups and spies for the Deviant nations? We never hurt anyone! We weren't doing Unbridled Radiance any harm! We never took any forms the law had declared illegal-"

"And yet your method of taking these forms was in itself an act of Distortion," Ranse interrupted. "You broke the Radiant Laws, maligned the true image with Distortion after Distortion, and corrupted dozens of people to your cause – and all for something as petty as hedonism." Ranse shook his head, once again disapproving. "You'd do well do distance yourself from it, Glinda, lest you end up like its comrade on display here. " He indicated the corpse in the tank. "...Or condemned to the life of a fugitive like all the other members of the Amorphous League."

_They're trying to frighten me,_ she thought frantically, eyes darting between the advancing mage-surgeons. _They're hoping if I'm too spooked to pay attention to one of them, the other one can catch me off-guard. Or they're stalling for time until the guards get here. Either way, the plan's working,_ she realized, hastily turning around to see Cataphlax gliding around the corner towards her.

Then, absently replaying the last sentence of monologue in her head, she realized she'd heard a familiar name.

The Amorphous League.

"You were talking about them at the lecture," Glinda suddenly remembered aloud.

"So you were one of the witnesses to Walter Luddestone's metamorphosis? Most studious of you, Miss Glinda. Having seen it in action and observed the transcendence of Purification I'm sure you'd agree that it is by far the most ideal means of achieving and preserving beauty – certainly more benign than the curse offered by the renegade mage-surgeons who formed the League."

"Only _you'd_ call shapeshifting a curse, glazeface," Omber snarled.

"Wait _what?"_

"Wouldn't you?" Ranse carried on, ignoring Glinda's outburst. "Your heresy has left you as a twisted fusion of shapeshifter and human, male and female; a thing with neither beauty nor even the most basic certainty of being. And the state you aspired to as an active member of the league – a state of perpetual shapeshifting, with no form but that of protoplasmic gel? Oh, you are truly lost, Omberature Landless. When was the last time you were welcome in the Empress's glorious presence? When was the last time you had the luxury of knowing if you were truly man or woman?"

"What makes you think I _care? _Why do you think that I still want to be part of your poxy little empire?"

"Oh, we don't," said Cataphlax, sickly-sweet and dismissive. "You made your allegiance painfully apparent when you chose to flee the country, and you've since made it clear you've no interest in returning to our Empress's embrace. But perhaps your sweet companion might: after all, it's her that the Empress wants alive."

Suddenly, Glinda had the mage-surgeons' undivided attention; the two of them were talking, their voices a sweet hypnotic purr and their faces seemingly more beautiful than ever.

"Wouldn't you be interested, Glinda?"

"Wouldn't you want to accept the love of our Empress and the perfection that is your birthright?"

"You've sensed the corruption in the entity stand beside you, the living taint of Distortion and the madness of Deviancy resident in its body and mind. You know you cannot trust Omber and its ilk."

"You know the fate that awaits it and those like it – a life of misery, ugliness and pain without any chance of redemption - and it disgusts you just as it would any loyal citizen of Unbridled Radiance. But you can still be redeemed; you need not put your trust in the likes of Deviants and criminals..."

As she listened, the voices of the advancing Purified seemed to merge and combine, the words dissolving into a long, draw-out hum of mesmerising sound. It was almost like music, but much more captivating, for it seemed to coil past her eardrums and slide fluidly into the deepest regions of her brain. There, it spoke of the Empress' heartfelt embrace, of a quick end to the study of her body, of hot baths and soft beds, and a slow, blissful collapse into whatever fate was decided for her. And for one paralysing moment, it was almost impossible to resist the compulsion to step away from the tank and let the mage-surgeons lead her away. Glinda would have given in right then and there – had Walter's screaming face not chosen that moment to drift past her mind's eye.

_They're going to Purify me,_ she remembered, a shudder of horror neatly breaking the spell of the music. _And that's if they don't decide to "incorporate" me into that thinking engine._

"I can still trust Omber more than I can trust you," she snarled, backing away.

"And what have we done to inspire such paranoia, Miss Glinda?"

"You know damn well!" Glinda screamed. She was almost pressed against the shelf behind her, close enough to touch the jars and globes that cluttered it. "I saw what you did in the lecture hall! I saw what you did to Walter last night! You tore him apart – you _tore his skin off, _you tortured him until -"

Once again, Cataphlax's girlish titter rattled the glass of the display cases. "Oh my poor, misguided child," she giggled, "you do not yet understand the realities of Purification: deep in his heart, Walter wanted the perfection we'd attained; his conscious mind denied it, his body corrupted it with the base chemicals of fear, but in his soul, he wanted to be just as beautiful as we are now. Why do you think he worked so hard, strove for such achievement, if it wasn't for the height of perfection that _we_ represent?"

Hastily swallowing a mouthful of bile, Glinda found her hands straying across the shelf beside her, towards one of the nearest objects in reach; it was a solid glass cube, perhaps nineteen inches from end to end, otherwise empty except for a few severed fingers trapped in the very centre of it. Maybe if she could lift it, she might be able to use it as a weapon.

"Why don't any of you people understand what happened back there?" she continued loudly. "He didn't want it to happen! He was screaming for mercy up until you started fiddling around with his brain – don't you remember?"

"We do," said Ranse. "But what you call "fiddling around," we _know_ to be the process of freeing a human being from fear."

"We do not torture, Miss Glinda," Cataphlax clarified. "We do not mutilate; we do not perform any act unless a patient truly deserves and desires it... and Walter Luddestone was crying out for it with every fibre of his innermost being." The permanent smile widened, showing gleaming white teeth. "As are you."

That did it.

Grabbing the cube with both hands, Glinda wrenched it off the shelf and flung it at the two Purified as hard as she could. Then, barely stopping to shout "RUN!" or even listen for the sound of shattering glass, she turned and sprinting towards the staircase.

A split second later, Ranse slammed into her with the force of a runaway train, hoisting her off the ground and pinning her against the nearest wall. Glinda kicked out wildly, pummelling the doctor's body with her fists and feet, but nothing she did could loosen the vice-like grip on her shoulders. Ranse barely seemed to notice the impacts against his stomach or face, and after ten more seconds of hitting him, Glinda wasn't all that surprised: it felt like she was punching a lamp-post rather than anything living.

Over the Purified doctor's shoulder, she saw Omber charging at Cataphlax, threshing the air between the two of them with strong but awkward swings of the wrench. But on the fourth attack, Cataphlax caught the wrench in mid-swing, blocking its descent with one dainty hand and slapping it out of Omber's grip.

Then she lunged: tackling the engineer to the floor and pinning him/her down with her knees, she then grabbed Omber by his/her collar and smashed the dazed ex-shapeshifter across the face with a right cross that sent blood spraying out across the carpet. Dazed and clearly groggy, s/he tried to fight back, but every single punch – no matter how well-aimed – the mage surgeon instantly swatted aside, before delivering another hammer-like blow to the jaw. And another, and another – until even Glinda couldn't fail to recognize that Cataphlax wasn't trying to subdue or even restrain Omber until the police arrived; she was trying to kill him/her and succeeding, too.

And with the other doctor holding her in place, there didn't seem to be anything Glinda could do to stop the beating. Worse still, even as she vainly struggled to escape, she could hear Ranse whispering another verse of the same mind-numbingly hypnotic chant...

Biting down hard on her lip in a desperate attempt to keep herself awake, she flailed around once more – this time, trying to reach one of the shelves for another improvised weapon. No luck, the nearest shelf was about ten feet away. She tried screaming, hoping to distract Ranse – or his counterpart, she wasn't too choosy; but the chanting didn't stop, and neither did the beating.

Finally, her hands slumped to her sides in exhaustion...

... and she felt the sharp point of the broken wand in her pocket.

Suddenly operating entirely on instinct, Glinda moved with a speed she'd never used in her entire life, drawing the sharpest sharpest piece of the lot from her pocket and swinging it upwards, right into Ranse's neck.

It struck the Purified doctor in the throat, just below the left side of his jaw, and tore deep into the gleaming flesh-porcelain with a flash of what could only be magic. Ranse's eyes went wide; for the first time, Glinda saw the smile on his face give way to a gape of astonished disbelief. Then, from the wound in his throat, forking tongues of electricity began to worm their way across his skin, cracking and burning the flesh-porcelain as it went. His eyes flashed wildly, his fingers twitched spasmodically, and as his jaw opened wider, Glinda caught a very distinctive smell of burning.

With a scream of pain, he dropped Glinda and staggered away, clutching his head as if it were about to turn inside out. Glinda herself had just enough time to duck out of the way before the spark of random magic ripped through the Purified's body and blew him apart like a porcelain doll stuffed with firecrackers.

Ducking the hail of shrapnel, Glinda ran at full pelt towards the distant brawl at the other end of the room, stopping only scoop up the wrench... and immediately dropped it.

Swearing and struggling to stay on her feet, she tried to lift it again - far easier said than done, because the damn thing was so heavy that she almost fell forward twice in a row. But with Omber's pained shouts growing ever-more desperate, she managed to _just _haul the thing into her arms and totter over to the two brawling figures.

Then, with every single muscle in her arms howling in protest, she swung the wrench hard as she possibly could at Cataphlax's head.

With the mage-surgeon trying to strangle Omber and too busy to look up, she didn't even see it coming: the wrench hit her side-on and sent her tumbling away.

Cataphlax was struggling to rise by the time Glinda caught up with her; unfortunately, this time she was ready: when the wrench came hurtling towards her again, she ducked neatly under it, letting the heavy iron bar whiz harmlessly over her and sending Glinda into a helpless spin. She would have fallen over had she not been able to brace herself upright with the wrench– and Cataphlax was still clambering to her feet...

Right up until Omber leaped out of nowhere and cracked her across the skull with a rusty mace, felling her once again.

Glinda wasn't entirely certain how much of what happened next was due to any intelligent decision she and Omber had made, and how much of it was due to sheer adrenaline-fuelled panic. One way or the other, as Cataphlax attempted to rise again, the two of them just started hitting her – Omber with the purloined museum exhibit, Glinda with the wrench. Neither of them were interested in giving the Purified a chance to fight back or escape; every time she came close to rising, drawing a weapon from her coat or casting a spell, they'd hit her again; every time she mustered up the strength and speed to grab one of the bludgeons out of the air before it reached her, the other one would deal her a stunning blow across the face.

Had Glinda been thinking clearly, she might have been angry, vengeful; she might have been thinking of how Cataphlax was now just as trapped and helpless as Walter had been before she and Ranse had cut him open. She might even have screamed words to that effect – something loud, something furious, a shout of _"He didn't want what you did to him, you monster, HE DIDN'T WANT IT!"_ But Glinda wasn't thinking clearly; the only thing occupying her mind was the weight of the wrench and the desperate need to stop Cataphlax from getting up again.

Eventually, the mage-surgeon stopped moving. So, almost on instinct, the two of them finally stood back; by this time, both of them were panting and exhausted, Glinda's arms screaming from the effort of constantly swinging the wrench. And for a few seconds, that was almost all she could think about – until she looked down and saw Cataphlax lying dead at her feet, the once-perfect face now smashed almost in half.

For a split second or two, Glinda found herself wanting to celebrate: she wanted to punch the air, to yell in mad, triumphant glee and kick the body to mulch. Then, an instant later, the fog of anger faded and she found herself looking closer at the corpse lying at her feet.

Having seen Walter splayed out and bleeding, Glinda was surprised to see how little blood or gore there was: there was a faint spray of red across the fractured heart-shaped face, and a few slivers of bone, but that was about it; in fact, most of what the gaping hole exposed was a bird's nest of cables and clockwork mechanisms. It was as if, in their dedication to beauty, the mage-surgeons had insisted that the Purified should die as cleanly as possible. Even with her skull cracked open like an egg, Cataphlax still looked like a doll, smiling and almost perfect even in death.

Suddenly, she found herself wondering how long ago Cataphlax had been Purified: had she been a willing convert, and sat down obediently on the table to let the specialist cut her open? Or had she been like Walter? Did she spend her last few minutes begging for mercy, pleading to see her family before the mage-surgeons tore her apart and remade her as a monster? Glinda took a deep shuddering breath and took another step away from the body, dropping the bloodied wrench as she did so.

_I just killed someone,_ she realized dazedly.

Omber gave her a sideways look; though Cataphlax hadn't time to do any permanent damage, the ex-shapeshifter still looked a little worse for wear: along with a burst lip, a broken nose and a jaw that Omber was still absently massaging, the coffee-coloured skin of his/her face was marred by dozens of painful-looking cuts and scratches from Cataphlax's knifelike fingernails.

"First time?" s/he panted.

She nodded. "It's my day for famous firsts," Glinda gasped (wondering if it was possible to laugh and vomit at the same time).

"You're taking it pretty well, all things considered."

_Give me a minute,_ she thought. _Before you know it, I'll be sobbing like a waterfall._

"_And_ you saved my life, too."

"I... well, I had to return the favour at some point."

"Fair enough. But how'd you get rid of that other bastard?"

Glinda explained as quickly as possible, glad to have something to take her mind off Walter splayed out on the operating table and Cataphlax with her head torn open. When she finished, Omber turned away and began scanning the walls of the museum around them, absently chewing the joints of his/her right hand. "If it did that," s/he mused, "Then it's still got a little bit of leftover magic potential in it. Maybe if I were to patch it up a little..."

* * *

Elphaba silently rejoiced as the tiny indicator on the map began moving again.

For the last few hours, she'd been watching Glinda's movements across the map and desperately hoping to see some serious progress; for the most part, she hadn't seen much of it. Up until six-ish, Glinda had remained almost perfectly still. At first, Elphaba had panicked, thinking that she'd been captured, badly injured or even killed, until she realized that it would be equally logical to assume that she was just asleep. And now that the blip on the map was slowly making its way across Exemplar again, she found it almost impossible to look away – as if she could somehow affect Glinda's progress by sheer force of will.

She couldn't afford to start worrying: she needed to focus on other things – how she was going to leave Greenspectre, how she was going to get across the border without being shot down, and how she'd bring Glinda back. And of course, there were also questions of what she was going to do once she actually managed to rescue her: what to do if Glinda was injured, how to escape or fight back if someone from Unbridled Radiance was attacking her... and finally, where she was supposed to bring Glinda back _to._

_Have a little patience, _Elphaba told herself. _You don't need to focus all your attention on the damn thing. Just keep _half_ an eye on it. A watched pot never boils as they say... and I'm too willing to listen to homespun claptrap when I'm anxious._

Sighing deeply, Elphaba sank back into the cushions and once again settled in for a very long wait...

* * *

By the time they managed to escape the museum and creep across the last few feet of yard between them and the gates, it was seven o'clock, and the bright blue sky above the university campus was already filled with the sleek dart-shaped airships of Her Radiance's Finest – all of them disgorging a steady stream of white-uniformed officers onto the grounds.

Thankfully, most of the ships had decided to land at the very centre of the campus, perhaps a hundred feet away from the museum, allowing Omber a few minutes to go about picking the lock on the gates before anyone noticed the two figures lurking at the entrance. Of course, that didn't stop Glinda from spending the next thirty seconds chewing her bottom lip in muted anxiety, scanning the horizon for approaching guards or airships, and wondering why – if the mage-surgeons had been telling the truth – Omber didn't just turn into a bird and fly off.

At long last, the lock finally gave way and the gates swung open with an ear-splitting groan of protesting hinges. Glinda almost jumped at the sound, half-convinced that somebody at the opposite end of the campus might have actually heard it; and though Omber did his/her best to reassure her that the sound couldn't have possibly travelled _that_ far, that didn't stop either of them from leaving the university grounds at a brisk jog.

In fact, the two of them didn't slow down until they'd crossed the lush stretch of grassland that served as the university gardens – which was delayed by their slightly-irrational need to occasionally hide behind fruit trees and dive under topiary sculptures; it took another ten minutes for them to even work up the courage to speak out loud again, and by that time they were halfway along the lengthy tree-lined driveway leading back to the nearest road – having stopped to lean against the trunk of the larger oaks and catch their breath (and in Omber's case, to start patching up Glinda's wand with the odds and ends "borrowed" from the museum).

Glinda was the first to break the silence: "Did we have a plan for what to do next?" she asked wearily.

"More or less. Once we're off this lane, we shouldn't be too far from the docks: with a bit of luck, we might just be able to steal a ship and make it over the border. Of course, that'll depend on whether we can keep up our current disguise long enough to pick up new ones. By the way, how's that stomach injury doing?"

"It hurts, but I'll be okay for now. But do you really think we'll be able to just... fly out of here with a ship? I mean, do you know how to fly?"

"More or less. I _am_ an engineer, remember?"

"But what if we can't find a ship that you can fly? What if there are too many guards on patrol?"

"We'll just have to improvise. Like I said, it'll probably involve disguises again."

"Speaking of which, what happened to you being a shapeshifter? I mean, wouldn't that come in handy?"

Omber's face fell. "I knew you were going to ask about that sooner or later," s/he sighed.

"Well?"

"Look, even if I wanted to shapeshift my way out of this debacle – which I do, admittedly – I couldn't. The Amorphous League didn't use spells for their transformations; they used a carefully-brewed magic potion – and my last dose of it wore off about three days after I escaped Unbridled Radiance the first time and I haven't had another dose since."

"But Cataphlax and Ranse mentioned something about 'permanent transformation'-"

"They also said that was the state I _aspire _to, remember? I haven't gotten there yet. I'd probably have to take the damn potion for another ten to twenty years before the side-effects added up to perpetual transformation."

"Side-effects?" Glinda echoed.

"Why do you think I look like this, Glinda? This is the sort of thing that crops up with every dose of the potion we take: distinguishing marks are erased; fingerprints fade away; gender becomes difficult to determine; fingers and toes start to merge. From what I've seen, by the time you're a senior league-member, things get really interesting. Believe me; if you'd teamed up with one of them you'd be out of this city and over the border by now; and you'd probably be having a much weirder conversation, too: when they're not shapeshifting, they look like giant bowls of jelly with eyeballs."

The ex-shapeshifter glanced around, checking to see that nobody was creeping up the lane towards them: eventually, s/he held up Glinda's wand; though it was still a far cry from its original glittering magnificence, it was thankfully back in once piece and held together by a fairly sturdy-looking mixture of metal plating and wire. "Now," s/he said briskly, "You said you might have a way of getting out of here if your wand was intact?"

Glinda nodded, wondering if the Bubble would really allow them to travel far with so many superior magicians wandering the city.

"Well, I think we might be able to get that working, but only for short distances. Trouble is, there's not much capacity for magic left in the damn thing: I've worked with magical equipment before, and this one's just about at the end of its tether. If you overuse it at this stage, it'll either go dead or explode. So, just in case we do have to use this way of yours-"

"-Keep it in reserve," Glinda finished. "I know. You're not telling me anything I don't already know. On the upside, if we do have to fight again, I won't be the one hurling spells left and right."

"Fair enough. But we're going to be heading along a main road soon, and there's going to be a lot of people on heading to work: we're officially third-class citizens at present, so keep your head down, don't take your hat off, keep your wand where they can't see it, and don't look anyone in the eye. Clear?"

"Crystal."

"Good. We've got at least a mile or two between this campus and the docks, so let's get moving..."

* * *

What with the university's compulsive need to impress visitors, it took almost half an hour to get off the driveway and into the street; to Glinda, who was still preoccupied with her thoughts about everything she'd seen and done in the last forty-eight hours, the transition was startling: one minute they were walking along a long, winding lane bordered with towering oak trees, verdant lawns and stout brick walls – a place so quiet and tranquil they might as well have been in the countryside; the next, they'd turned a corner and found themselves standing on the edge of a city street, gawping at the metropolis of gleaming white towers all reaching towards the airship-crowded sky and dazzled by the reflected glare of the morning sun. Even with the buildings being hidden by the trees, even with the noise being muffled by walls and distance, it was almost impossible to imagine that anything other than magic had been involved: maybe the university and the city were in different parts of the country, bridged through enchantment; maybe not. She'd have to tell Elphaba when she saw her again, she'd know all about –

Glinda swallowed. _Stop it. Just stop thinking about her. Stop thinking about anything, you idiot; people are going to ask questions if you start crying._

Omber discreetly elbowed her in the ribs, and nodded at her to follow as s/he stepped out of the university entrance and onto the pavement. So, keeping her head down and only looking at the world around her out of the corner of her eye, she shuffled awkwardly into the streets of Exemplar – her thoughts blurring wildly between Cataphlax's smashed face, Walter screaming and skinless, and Elphaba vanishing into the distance.

For the umpteenth time in recent memory, she forced herself to focus on something - _anything_ else: immediately, she found herself once again staring up at the gigantic buildings: all of them were white marble, and so polished that they almost glowed in the sunlight, their windows glittering brilliantly enough to dazzle her again. It was almost like the first visit to the Emerald City, except the decor was pure white instead of green. If anything, these towers stretched even higher, and while the designs were much less varied, they were still astoundingly beautiful – apart from the occasional ghastly poster warning all and sundry to "BEWARE THE DEVIANT! SHUN THE DISTORTED! REPAY THE LOVE OF YOUR EMPRESS AND HELP BRING THESE ABOMINATIONS TO JUSTICE!"

But thing she couldn't help noticing; it was much quieter, too. The familiar sounds of a city were all here: shoes on pavement, vehicles rumbling up and down the road, the rumble of hundreds of people talking, and so on; but it all sounded distant and muffled, as if it was being heard underwater. It wasn't unpleasant – in fact, Glinda was almost happy to not have to listen to the usual hubbub – but at the same time, it was still curiously unnerving.

There was one sound that could clearly be heard, though: music. Somewhere high above them, among the gilded statues overlooking the street, a beautiful voice was singing in a language that Glinda had never heard before: the music itself was equally alien, but the tone of it was downright jubilant – a song to dance to, even; it might have even been uplifting if it hadn't been sung in the haunting near-silence of the street. Here, in this echoing canyon of white marble, with no-one responding to it or even acknowledging that they'd heard it, the music only sounded unnerving.

Reluctantly tearing her eyes away from the statuary, Glinda found her gaze drifting down towards the people that she now shared the streets with. As low-level workers, she and Omber were pressed very firmly against the nearest wall with all the other "menials": labourers, mechanics, errand boys, and all manner of other low-level dogsbodies marched alongside them, eyes to the ground and talking amongst themselves in low, unobtrusive voices. There weren't too many of them on the street, maybe about thirty at the most, apparently because workers generally preferred to travel by the subway instead of braving the treacherous streets. Several feet away from them, the middle class was out in force, too; dressed better than the workers and allowed more freedom of movement, they made up the lion's share of pedestrians this morning. But oddly enough, alongside the starched collars and briefcases, Glinda couldn't help noticing the fact that some of the men were wearing makeup – a sign (according to Omber) of an ambitious employee trying to cover an embarrassing flaw ("That's the sort of thing that can ruin a promotion in this city, believe me"). And despite all the natty suits and upturned gazes among the crowd, Glinda also had the impression that many of the middlemen were just as cowering and fearful as the workers...

And, as she saw the gleam of Purified skin twenty feet to her left, she realized it was for a very good reason: the Empress's Chosen were sharing the path with them, humbling the uniformed middle-class with their tailored suits and effortless panache. There was nothing uniting _them_ with the workers and the middle-class: if the reverence for them was any evidence, they might as well have been gods incarnate for all the similarities they had with the other pedestrians.

But as her eye swept across the gleaming array of carriages and automated engines gliding along the road like motorized palaces and the heavily-armed soldiers patrolling the distant streets, there was one thing that truly got Glinda's attention: the crowd around was not exclusively human. Indeed, many of them were Animals, and unlike Oz – where, in recent years, Animals were lucky to end up as servants if they were employed at all – they weren't just functionaries, nor were they limited to the middle class.

There were _Purified Animals_, their brushed coats and lustrous manes almost as vibrant as their glowing eyes. And yet, once she looked past the custom-made clothes and the obvious respect shown them, she couldn't shake the impression that these elite were more like taxidermy trophies than anything alive and breathing.

_Not what _she_ would have wanted,_ Glinda thought, absently. _Not what she would have wanted at all._

After about twenty blocks, they reached a turn in the road, and the two of them left both the main street and the majority of the traffic behind and made their way down a very long, sloping avenue leading to the city docks' employee entrance. This time, Glinda had a good view of their destination from the very top of the hill, and had time to get over the sense of awe long before they reached it – and just as well, because Exemplar's primary airship dock was a city unto itself. Even if you ignored the small metropolis of shipping crates and the hulking warehouses, it was still a hive of activity swarming with the ant-like shapes of dockers, technicians, crewmen, passengers, guards and officials, all of them dwarfed by the airships they surrounded. _And we're supposed to steal a ship out of all that,_ she thought. _This might just be the most impossible thing I've ever attempted in my entire life._

Then, she heard the awestruck shouting from the bottom of the hill: another huge crowd of people was rippling across the street, but unlike the parade of morning commuters they'd just left behind, these people weren't heading to work; as far as Glinda could tell, they were congregating around a small cluster of white-uniformed guards, and-

"Oh god," Omber groaned. "Not _again..."_

Glinda looked closer and recognized the familiar figure of the Radiant Empress slowly making her way towards the gates. Now dressed in resplendent white and gold robes and surrounded by a glowing nimbus of magical energy, she seemed even more beautiful than before; the crowd clearly thought so too, because every single one of them was trying to get closer to her. Many of them were tearfully praising her, crying out in supplication, some of them even going so far as to fall to their knees in worship. In fact, as they drew closer to the mob, Glinda swore she could see many of the people openly weeping tears of joy.

This wasn't the kind of reception Glinda had ever seen directed at her or even at the Wizard: as enthusiastic as the crowds in Oz had been, none of them had ever shown this level of devotion. To the people of Exemplar, the Empress wasn't just a beloved celebrity, nor was she just another cherished leader: she was a goddess.

For her part, the Empress responded to the crowd with her usual reassuring smile, occasionally nodding, bowing, and sometimes murmuring words which had the congregation howling in ecstasy. At one point, one of the worshippers somehow managed to slip past the protective cordon of guards and actually hug the Empress; if Her Radiance was in any way surprised by this development, she certainly didn't show it. She simply returned the embrace – with a kiss on the cheek, no less– and allowed the worshipper to return to the depths of the crowd in an awestruck daze.

"Okay," Omber muttered. "She hasn't seen us yet. Just keep moving slowly; look like you're interested but keep moving along towards the gates. At least the gates are unguarded now. Hopefully nobody'll ask us for ID..."

It took quite a while for them to edge past the crowd, what with them having to feign interest in the luminous figure at the very centre of it, but eventually, Glinda and Omber were able to creep through the gates and into the shipping hub of the Exemplar city docks.

Just as she'd seen from the top of the hill, it was a vast place, swarming with workers – either drawn to the entrance by the news that the Empress had made an appearance, or simply going about their daily routine. Just past the gate, armed guards patrolled almost every single corner of the facility, barking orders and conducting rough-looking inspections. Magicians wandered around, surveying containers for dangerous contents and magically incinerating anything that looked potentially hazardous. Technicians drove hovering carts of equipment to and fro, stopping only to perform repairs on some power conduit or forklift. Cargo containers rumbled back and forth across the concrete plain, some of them being stacked amongst the vast towers of crates and boxes awaiting expert survey, or being loaded onto the airships themselves. Omber briefly contemplated using a container to sneak aboard one of the ships; Glinda (who'd just about had enough of being trapped in dark suffocating coffins for one lifetime) politely declined.

With so much activity going on and so many different exits and entrances into different regions of the docks, it didn't take long for the two of them to get completely lost. Apparently, this was one of the few places in Exemplar that Omber hadn't visited during his/her many sordid adventures across Unbridled Radiance.

"I knew I should have held onto the goddamn saboteur's map," s/he fumed. "I just knew it. But no. 'I won't need it,' I said. 'I'm smuggling myself out of the country with Mead and Haugg. I'll just shapeshift into a small child and pretend to be their son. Besides, people will ask questions if they find a four-year-old carrying a map of restricted areas!' Idiot, idiot, _idiot!"_

"Maybe we should just ask for directions?" Glinda suggested.

"And that won't look suspicious?!"

"We'll just say we're new here; it's a lot less suspicifying than just wandering around until someone notices we don't actually work here."

"Okay, you've got a point, but what if someone asks for ID the moment we start asking around? No, I've got a better idea..."

After hastily sidestepping a few patrolling guards, they finally managed to locate a mostly unoccupied watchtower; hoping to get an overhead view of the complex and the route they'd eventually take, they tiptoed up the stairs and up onto the balcony. Immediately, they realized that they were out of luck in one aspect: the entrance to the actual airship docks was overrun with guards, all of them checking ID cards and filtering out anyone who hadn't been cleared.

However, just a few hundred feet to the south of their current position, there was a tiny passageway between the maze of crates and containers: from what little the two of them could tell from this height, it actually led them all the way into the docking area - specifically to the back of what appeared to be a private airstrip, fenced off with barbed wire and heavily-armed sentries from almost other angle of approach. And despite Omber's paranoid suggestions that there would probably be guards waiting for them the moment they got within a yard of this secret entrance ("There's nobody _that_ stupid enough to leave an entrance like that unguarded,"), the passage appeared to be completely deserted.

With no other options in sight, the two of them traipsed back down the stairs and headed south as quickly and quietly as they could; finding the entrance was a little trickier than first expected, because it was almost completely hidden by a large stack of crates. But once they'd found the tiny gate between the containers (and quickly made sure there were no guards waiting for them there) and begun squeezing their way through the narrow corridor between stacks, they eventually emerged into a small "plaza" at the very back of the private airstrip.

Though not exactly crowded, the area was still abuzz with activity; thankfully, most of the inhabitants consisted entirely of technicians and labourers, allowing Glinda and Omber to fit in very easily without their disguises raising too many inquisitive glances. From what they could work out, most of the work involved a number of heavy crates – first lowered into the plaza by a freight crane, then emptied by a small army of harried-looking dockers. In turn, they lugged the contents - a number of large, oddly-shaped metal ingots - onto motorized trolleys and slowly wheeled them towards the far end of the dock. Waiting there, perhaps a thousand yards away from the staging area, were three airships: the first two were colossal, weapon-studded hulks that looked almost too heavy to move, let alone fly; the other was a small, knife-shaped vessel – the apparent destination of most of the ingots.

Meanwhile, back in the "plaza", a small platform had been erected at the very centre of the area, and a gaggle of robed figures were hard at work on something that could only be magical – all of them either leafing through spellbooks, tracing gestures in the air and leaving multicoloured trails through the air, or tapping the ground with ornate staffs and wands. But looking closer, Glinda could only gape in astonishment and struggle not to laugh at what she saw under the hoods of the magicians: in spite of all the heavy-duty casting at work on the platform, few of them looked a day older than fifteen years of age; in fact, quite a few of them were clearly children, almost hidden beneath adult-sized robes and struggling to complete the next sequence of gestures without their hands being swallowed up by their cavernous sleeves. The youngest of them looked barely old enough to walk, and was reading from a spellbook so large that an assistant had to hold the pages open for him.

Just as Glinda was starting to wonder if everything she'd seen over the past few hours had just been a fever dream that was only now going from nightmarish to simply ludicrous, she heard a terrifyingly familiar voice echo across the plaza: "Exactly _what_ were you thinking?"

As one, the workers snapped to attention and bowed; for their part, the two fugitives could only duck behind a half-empty container and hope that nobody would notice them. Ignoring Omber's frustrated whispering ("Why do we keep bumping into this harridan?") Glinda peered out from behind the container to watch the approaching figures: the first was obviously the Empress, white-robed and luminous as ever – though this time, she looked somewhat irritable; the second of the two visitors was another dark-robed figure, this one barely hip-height with the Empress and struggling not to trip over the hem of her robe. With her hood off, it was clear that the girl was about six years old, with braided blonde hair, a long, skinny face and pale blue eyes.

"Do you really think I'd have been willing to take the main entrance like any other worker?" the girl demanded, her voice loud and indignant. "Do you think any of my fellow researchers would have been willing to humiliatify themselves in such a way?"

"Your ego is not the issue here," the Empress chided. "Creating a back entrance between this dock and the warehouse district is a serious breach of security. Last I looked, you still had the presence of mind to care about these things – or should I notify your attendants that your psyche is starting to regress as well?"

"It's doing no such thing! I'm just not interested in being patted on the head by every other uninformiated worker from here to the entrance. I mean, the last time this sort of thing happened, one of the guards actually gave me a lollipop – _a lollipop,_ for Oz's sake – and asked me if I'd gotten separated from my parents! And what if my age had started fluctuatificating today, while I was passing through the public dock? The secret would be out and I'd be the laughingstock of the entire city!"

"The university already knows about your little secret. You don't seem to mind the students and teachers knowing the details of your condition; why bother worrying about the docks?"

"That's different! The teachers and students understand the meaning of discretiation! If I were to start aging or regressing in a public –"

"Can we please get back on topic? This is a very important operation, and I would prefer if you didn't jeopardize it through unnecessary egotism. I trust the researchers will be ready to open the teleportation gate to the designated locations."

"Yes, yes. Everything will be ready in a matter of minutes." There was a pause, and then in a much more hesitant tone of voice, the girl asked, "Do you remember my, um, proposal regarding Paragon and-"

"Yes, I do. And I'm afraid I must respectfully decline."

"Why? What could possibly be wrong with my researchers being able to contribute all the knowledge they've acquired over the decades? Why shouldn't their experience, their expertise in magical practise and theory be allowed to live forever as part of an immortal machine?"

"Don't try and conceal your motives behind righteousness, if you please; it was bad enough having to stomach it back when you were still in a position of authority, and it's even less tolerable now that you're a ward of the state. You want to be incorporated into Paragon so you won't have to put up with the difficulties of your current condition, but it's because of that very condition that I don't _need_ to have you or any of the other afflicted researchers incorporated. And," the Empress added sternly, "Before you try and make up some excuse about regressing to a stage prior to your birth, I've had quite a few specialists examining the data on this syndrome for many years – including Paragon, I might add. The scale of your regressions never exceeds one month of age: you are functionally immortal and the fact that you'll occasionally have to cope with a few embarrassing side-effects is no barrier to your usefulness as a researcher."

"One of those side-effects includes the inability to talk from time to time, don't forget: if I were one with Paragon, you wouldn't be handicapped by that-"

"It's _your_ handicap, not mine. And, meaning no offence, I'd rather if I didn't let it become _Paragon's _handicap as well. I'm sorry, but the difficulties faced by you and the other Childlike Researchers-"

"DON'T CALL US THAT!" the girl screamed, loud and petulant once again. "We deserve more respect for all the decades of service we've contributed, and I deserve more respect for aiding your efforts to control this rat's nest of a kingdom! Do you think you'd have gotten anything done without me helping you at the start? DO YOU?!"

The Empress very slowly crossed her arms, and gave the child a look that could have reduced the entire city to a glacial wasteland. "You have my respect," she said coldly. "The trouble is that you keep giving me reasons to revoke it. Furthermore, I can't attribute your behaviour to your condition: even as an adult you were always a spoiled brat, grabbing at anything that took your fancy even if it didn't belong to you, even if you were only planning to trade it for what you really wanted. That's the very reason we formed this little partnership if memory serves – so you could get something out of _me. _It's how you ended up afflicted with this syndrome in the first place; it's why you're never going to be addressed as "Chief Researcher," allowed adult quarters, be granted Purification, or incorporated into Paragon. You are a child, and thanks to your immaturity, a child you shall remain for all eternity."

The look of arrogant pride on the girl's face had vanished; now she looked almost on the verge of tears. "I thought you'd remember what I'd done for you!" she whined. "Did every favour mean nothing? I thought we might even be friends! Isn't that worth _something?"_

"_My dear,"_ said the Empress, clearly stressing the words "my dear" as an insult, "You and your friends have been given almost every resource you could possibly need for your research; you've been given food and accommodations that most children of your biological age couldn't even dream of; you've been given luxuries, possessions, entertainment, and you've been given all the medical care and assistance that your condition requires. _I have rewarded you. _Now please, swallow your pride and get back to work. And count your blessings," she added, as she drifted away towards the middle of the airstrip. "Your condition might have only swapped one disability for another, but it's still a thousand times better than what you'd have suffered without it."

The girl was left standing alone in the middle of the plaza, her face streaked with tears. "Bitch," she whimpered bitterly, wiping her nose on her sleeve. "Whore. Ungrateful little... I should have left you where I found you and never looked back..."

"With that little drama over and done with," Omber whispered, "Let's get the hell out of here; we'll stow away on the smaller ship – it looks like it shouldn't have too big a crew. Once that's teleported out of here, we won't even have to pilot it out of Exemplar."

"Sounds fair enough," Glinda hissed back. "But when should we go? Now or once the cargo's loaded?"

Omber thought for a moment. "Let's go right now. If we leave it too long, we might miss out on a hiding place."

With that, the two of them stepped out from behind the shipping container and, pausing only to take two ingots from the container, joined the long line of dockers trailing down the airstrip towards the distant ships. Though both of them were careful to keep their heads down and their poses workmanlike, it thankfully didn't seem necessary for the moment: everyone was too busy hauling the cargo back and forth to pay much attention to the faces around them.

Those of them that weren't hard at work were currently staring at the enormous circular teleportation gate that was now hovering in the air just a few yards away from the ships – a hole cut in the substance of the air itself. _That's our way out,_ Glinda thought. _It's within reach..._

And then, just as she was starting to think that their luck might be improving, the little girl happened to cut across the line – and trip over Glinda's shoes, landing in a heap right in front of her.

"Oh for Oz's sake!" the girl snapped as she scrambled to her feet. "Why don't you watch where you're going-"

Her eyes widened. Too late, Glinda realized that from this angle the girl had a perfect view of the face she'd been hiding under the mechanic's cap.

"_You,"_ the child whispered, cold blue eyes lighting up in recognition.

In perfect unison, Omber and Glinda threw their cargo aside and ran for their lives towards the distant ships – just in time for the little girl's clarion-like voice to ring out across the airstrip: "EMPRESS! IT'S HER! IT'S GLINDA!"

A moment later, Glinda felt the entire world around her flip upside-down as something yanked her off the ground and sent her tumbling backwards through the sky; in the space of a few heart-stopping seconds, she flew for no less than fifty feet back into the plaza before finally jolting to a stop in midair – right in front of the Empress.

"You never cease to amaze, Glinda," she said mildly. "I would have hoped you would have remained in stasis until such time as the doctor had finished examining you for signs of Distortion. But you chose to run; you hid, you evaded, you took on so many different disguises, you even killed two of our best and brightest mage-surgeons. And now here you are, no doubt trying to escape the country altogether. Disappointing, but sadly not altogether surprising; perhaps you're more like the real Glinda than I previously thought. But let me ask you this: where would you run to?"

"I don't know," said Glinda; at this point, she wasn't entirely sure what the hell she was saying – more than anything else, she was scanning the airstrip for any sign of where Omber had run off to. "I don't know," she continued aimlessly.

"You're not planning to return to the Deviant Nations? You're not interested in reporting what you've seen to your masters, or enjoying the benefits of a promotion at their hands?"

"I'm not _from_ the Deviant Nations!" Glinda snarled. "And what would I possibly tell them? Other than the fact that this country is a madhouse, I've got nothing to say. I don't care if I don't know where I'm going, either: anywhere's better than _here."_

The Empress favoured this little outburst with a quizzical tilt of her head. "And what makes you say that? What have you witnessed about Unbridled Radiance that makes it so hateful to you?"

"Purification: I saw it happening, I saw a man being cut open on stage and-"

"You saw a man being elevated from his base origins; you saw a man being given the body he truly deserved, and being cleansed of all the flaws that kept him from becoming truly perfect. You're not saying anything I haven't heard about Purification in the last few decades, Glinda. Everyone who doesn't understand the blessing it offers makes such protestations – until they see how happy their friends and relatives are among the ranks of the Purified." She smiled, and somehow Glinda found herself shuddering in open horror; hearing this explanation from the Purified themselves had been disgusting, but hearing it from Elphaba (_The Empress,_ she corrected herself angrily) made it all the more nightmarish. "Tell me," she asked, "Who was the man you saw Purified?"

"His name was Walter Luddestone."

"Would you like to see him again? Believe me, Glinda, if you were to see how happy Walter is, how productive and _contented_ he is without the constraints and limitations of his old body, you wouldn't fear Purification. You would beg to receive it_._" The smile on her face grew. "Tell me Glinda, what do you do for a living? If you admit to being a spy, you spend all your life away from home, alone and always afraid of being discovered and killed. If you persist in claiming that you really are Glinda Upland... well, if I estimate your age correctly, I'd say you're still working for the Wizard. And what kind of a life is that, really? A joyless, empty existence as a state-sponsored liar, with only one or two shallow attempts at friendships and a few pretty dresses to hide your unhappiness from the public – you told me that almost fifty years ago, Glinda, so don't pretend it's not the truth."

In that moment, Glinda wanted to cry: ever since she'd first met her, she'd been clinging to the pretence that the Empress hadn't really been Elphaba, that this had just been another facet of the dream – or of hell or the hallucination or what madness that she'd found herself tumbling into. But now, with this tiny piece of evidence, it was almost impossible to deny the truth.

"Wouldn't you want some company in your loneliness?" the Empress asked. "Wouldn't you want to be a part of a society where you wouldn't be alone? Where the beautiful and brilliant like yourself would be united by their achievements, not divided by them? Unbridled Radiance awaits you, Glinda: all you have to do is accept its generosity."

"But it's... its horrifying... everything I've seen here is-"

"-still a thousand times better than when this was still known as the Land of Oz," the Empress/Elphaba finished. "And you know what I haven't seen since I took control of the country? I haven't seen anyone persecuting Animals. I haven't seen a rumour-mill spiralling out of control. I haven't seen corruption and bribery infecting the highest offices of government. I haven't seen incompetent management relying on illusions and fakery to disguise the fact that nothing is accomplished. I haven't seen nobles and social-climbers jockeying for favour, fighting to achieve power and high office only to ruin the lives of those around them though stupidity and greed. No, Glinda; I have brought order, justice and _balance _to what was once an imperfect land. In my society, there is none of the past eras' ugliness: there is only peace, accomplishment, unity... and above all else, beauty. Soon you'll understand."

From somewhere to the Empress's left, there was a loud scream from the dockers and an even louder scream of metal under stress and motors fighting to remain active. Across the plaza, the enormous freight crane had abandoned the business of lowering and raising shipping containers, and was now swinging towards the Empress at a speed just fast enough to be lethal, a half-full container left in its grip hurtling towards her like a battering ram.

For her part, the Empress didn't even have the decency to look surprised: without even batting an eyebrow, she tossed Glinda aside –_ out of danger _– with a wave of her hand; then, a split second before the crane and its shipping-container flail struck her, magic flexed outwards. Both crane and container stopped instantly, as if they'd hit a brick wall: then a solid fist of magic encircled the container and clenched shut, buckling the metal and swiftly crushing it down into a piece of scrap iron no bigger than a shoebox. Then, without warning, the entire crane was wrenched off its supports with a low, metallic tearing sound, flipped upside down and _shook, _as if trying to dislodge someone from its surface; then, when that didn't appear to work, the very structure of the crane appeared to spontaneously warp and rupture, the arms and the chassis itself curling inwards upon themselves. Glinda caught a brief glimpse of someone leaping out of the cab at the last minute before the entire crane turned itself inside out. Then the Empress waved her hand again, catching the falling figure in mid-drop and sending him flying backwards across the plaza towards them, to land sprawled in the dust beside Glinda.

It was Omber.

"The wand!" s/he shouted. "The wand!"

Glinda didn't need to be told twice: drawing her wand from the sleeve of her boiler suit, she grabbed Omber by the hand and brought the wand swishing down over the two of them. For one horrible moment, she thought it wouldn't work, that the only decent spell she'd ever learned in her entire life would fail them when she needed it the most.

Then the moment passed, and the two of them were hovering in mid-air, encased in the familiar transparent bubble that had become Glinda's trademark in the eyes of the Ozian public.

With another flourish of her wand, Glinda sent the bubble floating across the airstrip as fast as she could, trying to outrun anything that might possibly rupture their transport.

True to form, as they flew, the ground behind them erupted in multicoloured explosions as the Empress tried to stop them, massive green and purple fireballs tearing the concrete airstrip open and showering the fleeing dockers with shrapnel.

But for once in its existence, the bubble was actually moving faster than walking pace – certainly fast enough to outrun the creeping barrage of spellcraft – and force in her life, Glinda wasn't trying to impress anyone. She just wanted to get the hell out of this country, or the very least to the nearest airship.

At long last, the bubble finally landed on the top deck of the smallest airship, bursting open against the streamlined glass dome of the cockpit and leaving the two of them to topple helplessly onto the boards; thankfully, most of the crew were already running for their lives, allowing the two of them to make their way towards the pilot's seat without having to actually fight anyone. Omber immediately ducked behind the wheel, frantically pressing buttons and turning switches, fighting to get the ship airborne.

"How long is it going to take?" Glinda asked, almost as frantic.

"Just a few seconds; they've already got it prepped for launch, thank all the gods and demiurges. At least I don't have to demonstrate how out-of-practice I am at readying airships. How far away is the Empress?"

"She's still a good distance away from what I can see. I don't think she's actually planning to get any closer."

"Oh, great. She's planning another magical attack, is she?"

"No. She's not doing anything apart from watching us."

"What kind of sense does _that_ make? We're fugitives about to make off with an airship filled with valuable cargo. Why the hell isn't she trying to stop us?"

Somewhere behind Glinda, the deafening boom of a gunshot split the air, and without warning, Omber's right shoulder _vanished_ in an explosion of blood and shredded meat. With a scream of pain, the engineer toppled to the deck, immediately caught between trying to clamber upright and staunching the gushing wound to his/her shoulder. Then, another shot rang out, and this time it was Omber's left knee that erupted in a spray of gore; this time, s/he could only writhe helplessly.

In shock, Glinda instinctively turned towards the source of the noise, up to the deck of the massive warship overshadowing their tiny vessel: there, his silver mask gleaming like a beacon in the morning sunlight, stood the Empress's Champion.

Holstering the smoking hand-cannon, he took a running leap and hurtled over the railing, elegantly somersaulting through the air to land crouched on the deck of their own ship – right in front of Glinda.

For a moment, he studied her, the eyes behind the mask sweeping up and down across her body – an action more mechanical than human, she thought; then he rose, drawing the blade from his belt and wordlessly advancing on her. Glinda could only keep herself as far out of reach as possible, backing desperately away from the cockpit – and away from the struggling, mortally-wounded ex-shapeshifter struggling to reach the controls– and towards the yawning trapdoor that led into the cargo hold.

But before she could reach it, the Champion swept forward with a speed that rendered him little more than shapeless black and silver blur to Glinda's eyes, and grabbed her by the arm. For a spit second, Glinda was airborne again; then she hit the deck hard, bumping her head painfully as she landed. A moment later, the Champion loomed over her, blade ready for the killing strike.

"Please," she gasped desperately. "You don't have to do this."

The masked face titled quizzically.

"Just... let us go. You can say you made a mistake, that we caught you by surprise. Just let us go."

From somewhere beneath the mask, a hoarse, sepulchral voice whispered, "Deviancy must be punished. Deviants must not be allowed to escape the Empress's wrath."

"I'm not a Deviant," she protested. Once again, she wasn't entirely sure what she was attempting to accomplish, other than allowing Omber time to get at the controls, but at that point, dying silently was about the least attractive fate Glinda could have imagined. "I swear, I'm not a Deviant," she continued. "I'm just... Glinda Upland. That's all there is too me – no shapeshifting, no deformities, nothing."

But she could already tell she'd made a mistake: under his tunic, the muscles of the Champion's arms were slowly tensing in undisguised rage. Before she could make another move to escape, the black-clad assassin was already swinging the blade down towards her in a deadly, elegant arc: it tore deep into her midriff – neatly criss-crossing the wound that the Empress had left there – and Glinda actually felt it graze her ribs as it sliced its way free of her flesh.

"Glinda is dead," the Champion intoned, voice unnaturally calm despite the hatred evident in every muscle of his body. "Glinda is dead, as the Empress has proven. Glinda is dead... as are you."

In that moment, with every nerve alight with pain and her own blood now joining Omber's on the deck, Glinda did the only thing she possibly could do under the circumstances: she drew her wand and launched a bolt of magical energy at him, the most powerful one she'd ever cast, enough to send the Champion flying off the ship; or at least, she tried. True enough, what little energy she could muster was instantly channelled through the wand and into its tip; but instead of firing, the entire wand chose that moment to give up the ghost and _explode_.

For three entire seconds, Glinda's right hand was a blazing fireball and the air was filled with the smell of roasting meat; but even as she opened her mouth to scream in pain, she saw the shockwave send the Champion hurtling off the deck.

Then, miracle of miracles, the airship started to move: despite being almost immobilized by the injuries to his/her arm and leg, Omber had still been able to press a few crucial switches. Slowly, with the wounded engineer painstakingly working the controls, the tiny airship began reluctantly trundling across the open portal. In the few seconds before they reached it, Omber turned around and gasped, "Hang on to something, Glinda. These damn things can knock you flat or even off the ship if you're not careful-"

And then they hit the portal – and the acceleration hit _them_ head on, dislodging the two badly-injured fugitives from whatever toehold they'd managed to grab in the last five seconds and sending them careening helplessly across the deck. Rolling head over heels, the last thing Glinda saw was the open trapdoor to the cargo bay gaping open beneath her – right before the two of them went hurtling down the gangway, the trapdoor slamming shut behind them under the barrage of acceleration overhead.

Then, everything went black.

* * *

Elphaba blinked, and double-checked the map.

Somehow, without any kind of journey between the two points, Glinda's indicator had somehow gone from the very edge of Exemplar city to the very centre of No-Man's Land. Unless the enchantments around the map had started falling apart twenty hours ahead of schedule, this could only mean that Glinda had actually been teleported out of the capital... and she was now within reach.

And in that moment, just as she was wondering what to do next, she felt the anti-magic enchantments vanish from the room around her. Mind racing, got to her feet and shoved aside the armchair she'd been sitting on, snatched up the broom and made her way straight to the window; it took just under ten seconds to smash both the bars and the glass free of their respective frames, although she had to admit that blasting the windowsill into matchsticks was overkill on her part. Now staring off into a gaping hole in the wall, and with almost nothing between her and a thousand-foot drop the ground, she turned to see if anyone had noticed the ruckus she'd made.

Dorothy and Chistery were both standing there – the flying monkey's wing's tucked together in anxiety, the girl as wide-eyed and pale as ever. "You're going to find your friend, then?" she asked tentatively.

Elphaba nodded.

"Well, um... good luck."

_Why do I get the feeling I'm going to need more than my fair share of that particular resource if I'm going to survive this morning?_

Out loud, she said, "We'll see what happens, won't we. Maybe, before the day's out, you might just end up learning what kind of person would befriend someone like me." She offered an ironic little grin, donned her hat and clambered aboard the broomstick, swiftly readying herself for a kick-start just in case guards chose that moment to burst in.

"Of course, it all depends on how fast this thing can move," she added. "I think the enchantments are a little different than the once used on my old broom. I can't quite tell if they'll make it faster or slower, but it shouldn't make too much of a differAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARGGH!"

Had Elphaba been an inch or two out of alignment at that moment, she would have tumbled off the broomstick and gone plummeting to her death at the very base of the window. As it was, the acceleration merely sent her rocketing out of the badly-abused apartment and into the air; she half-expected to see her hat spinning aimlessly across the sky alongside her, but no, it somehow _just_ stayed on her head. Then, she happened to glance up from the blurring buildings passing below, and saw a very solid-looking tower looming out of the clouds – appropriately dead-ahead. Swerving frantically to the right, she only _just_ managed to avoid hitting it.

_Just as well, _Elphaba thought. _That would have been about the single most embarrassing way to die under the circumstances; to wait so long for a chance to see Glinda again and end the first thirty seconds of the journey embedded in a brick wall. _

But the acceleration was not done yet: now halfway across the Greenspectre skyline, Elphaba desperately manoeuvred herself as far upwards as she could manage, away from the incoming stream of towers and skyscrapers, and tried to slow down before atmospheric friction turned the broomstick into a comet. Whoever had enchanted the damn thing had wanted something much faster than Elphaba's first creation. In fact, as far as she could tell, she wasn't even travelling at this broomstick's top speed, and the city limits of Greenspectre were nearly in sight.

_At this rate,_ she thought, as the towers of the city passed her in a blur of motion, _I might just be able to reach Glinda soon – sooner than I originally thought, at any rate. With any luck, I'll have figured out how to stop by then..._

For some reason, Elphaba honestly didn't feel even slightly bothered by the situation: for the first time in what felt like _years_ (but couldn't have been more than two days, she was in flight. She was soaring above the buildings, flying faster than she'd ever flown in her entire life... and with that came the familiar sense of invincibility, intensified a thousandfold.

She was unstoppable.

More than that: she was the Wicked Witch of the West, and nothing in Oz, Unbridled Radiance or even the Deviant Nations could possibly bring her down.

* * *

"Greenspectre control, come in Greenspectre control. This is border station 183 with possible emergency; do you copy?"

"Roger, 183. What is your situation?"

"We have an unannounced arrival in sector 22, moving at high speed and likely to cross the border within the next five minutes."

"Describe the visitor: is it U.R.?"

"Negative; the vessel does not match any known U.R. airship range, nor does it match any kind of airship found in our databases. It appears to be... sir, I could be wrong, but it appears to be a broomstick."

"A _broomstick?"_

"Affirmative, Greenspectre control."

"...hmm..."

"Control? Awaiting your orders, sir."

"183, do you have any further projections on the ... broomstick's flight path?"

"All calculations suggest that it is aligned perfectly with the recent teleportation into No-Man's Land; in all probability, it is planning an interception or rendezvous. Should we open fire?"

"...Negative."

"Sir?"

"_Negative._ I repeat: do not fire. The broomstick and its pilot are not to be harmed under any circumstance. Prepare one of your patrol ships for launch and have it follow the incoming vessel over the border and into No-Man's Land; your operatives are to prevent any harm from coming to the vessel and to escort it back to Greenspectre if necessary. Is that understood?"

"Roger, Greenspectre control."

"Very good. Oh, and 183..."

"Yes, sir?"

"These orders come specifically from the Great Mentor; it'd be wise not to fall back on standard procedure in this case. Over and out."

* * *

Commander Moxburg Wills sat back in the captain's chair and sighed with an even mixture of relief and exasperation. It had taken a little more effort than initially anticipated to overtake and halt the damnable thing, but the runaway cargo transport had finally ground to a halt and was ready to be boarded.

In all honesty, the whole situation had been more of chore than an emergency. With the two fugitives badly wounded and the transport flying unpiloted across the barrens with its acceleration slowly grinding to a halt, it had been child's play to actually pursue it through the portal, harpoon the rogue ship's hull and slowly reel it in like a trout. The _real_ nuisance was in actually readying a ship for the job of pursuit: after the mad spectacle of the escape (during which, the fugitives had somehow managed to evade _the Champion _in the process – no doubt the silent brute would be brooding over it for days) the order to recapture the fleeing craft had reached perhaps thirty panicking technicians and a platoon of confused soldiers, and it had been up to Wills to get everything in order. It was no easy task, considering about half of the crew wanted to abandon ship before the situation got any worse.

It took the sudden appearance of the Empress upon the ship's bow to restore some semblance of order, and by that stage, Wills had been almost pathetically relieved to see that her Radiance was somehow taking this debacle in stride. There'd apparently been some kind of argument towards the opposite end of the airstrip, some kind of disagreement with the researchers over some blunder or another being made over the portal's destination – a magical misfire by the sound of things – but so far, the Empress was still as calm and serene as ever. With her assistance, they'd managed to get the first of the two warships airborne and into the portal, though to Wills' disappointment, she hadn't deigned to join them on this mad interception.

Shame, really. Her Radiance could have probably kept the crew motivated – and probably dragged the runaway ship into their reach by sheer force of will, too.

Of course, now that he was actually watching the tiny ship being slowly reeled towards the vast pincer-shaped hangar bay of _The Triumph,_ he doubted it would have been really worth it. It was silly of him to imagine that Empress need concern herself with something as petty as this situation; after all, she had to contend with the chaos on the airstrip on top of planning the next stage of the assault... and of course, that next stage depended entirely upon bringing back the transport and its cargo.

That still left the question of what to do with the fugitives once they were found; so far, his men hadn't reported any sign of them apart from a few massive pools of blood drying on the ship's deck, but what was he do to if he actually found them - alive or dead? The Empress hadn't specified anything in particular, but it would probably be safe to assume she'd want them returned regardless of their condition. Besides, from little he'd been able to see of the chaos unfolding back at the airstrip, one of the fugitives had actually spoken with the Empress; if Her Radiance had been willing to tolerate the presence of a Deviant long enough to actually hold a conversation, perhaps it would be safe to imagine that she might still have some kind of vested interest.

Wills shook his head, and tried to focus on something else: his soldiers hammering on the doors of the captured airship; the technicians hard at work keeping the transport tethered; the bridge of the ship around him abuzz with guards, officers and crewmembers at work; the gleaming hull of _The Triumph _beneath the sun; the barren expanse of No-Man's Land stretching out on all sides and framing his view with the jagged crags and wrecked ships that this wasteland had become so well known for; the odd shape in the sky.

_Hang on a minute..._

He hastily groped for the microphone on the control panel in front of him. "Watchtower?" he called. "Have there been any unusual sightings in the last few minutes?"

"Affirmative," came the reply. "One small craft approaching from above, captain. It's moving too fast to-"

The rest of the gunner's explanation was lost in an ear-splitting crash from directly overhead. Something had slammed into the glass dome that shielded the bridge from the open air at high speed, tearing through the reinforced glass like crispbread and leaving a gaping hole in the canopy. Worse still, right below the wound in the dome, something was slowly getting to its feet.

From what little Commander Wills could see, the intruder was tall, thin, and dressed from head to toe in deepest black- the intruder's body almost completely hidden by a billowing jet-black cloak, the face obscured by the wide brim of a pointed black hat. In one hand, it held a plain wooden broomstick, and somehow managed to make this mundane household object look more a deadly weapon than anything else. The other hand remained hidden beneath the cloak, but even Wills could recognize a magic spell in-preparation when he saw it.

Then the figure looked up: from under the brim of the hat, a hideous, livid face stared out at them, its skin Distorted with an unnatural emerald colouration, its brow furrowed and its eyes glittering with rage.

"Alright," said the creature, its voice low and dangerous. "I've had a very trying morning, but I'm going to ask this as politely as I can under the circumstances: where is she?"

The crew could only gape, terror having frozen their vocal chords.

"_Where... is... __**Glinda?!"**_ the creature demanded.

Suddenly capable of movement and speech again, Wills turned to the squad of gunmen standing the doorway and shouted, "What are you waiting for? Open fire!"

The soldiers were halfway through raising their rifles to fire when the green-skinned monster waved a hand and sent a rolling tide of multicoloured flame sweeping across the deck towards them; over the screams of the ex-guards and the stench of cooking flesh, the creature spun around and caught the charging security chief square in the chest with a bolt of lightning that toppled him to the floor in a charred heap. Then, as if concluding an argument, it turned to the rest of the crew, and with a wave of its hand and a blinding flash of emerald green light, the entire bridge dissolved into chaos.

Suddenly, anyone holding a gun was firing at anything that looked vaguely like the green-skinned attacker, and thanks to the dazzling light still pouring from the centre of the room, they weren't having too much success at hitting anything except their own comrades. Wills could only hide behind his chair and try to see where the Distorted monster had gone, even as fireballs ricocheted about the bridge and writhing tongues of electricity fried crewmen where they stood. Peering through the badly-cracked bridge windows, he could see the platoon of soldiers hurrying away from the captured transport and up the stairs towards the bridge, and hear the cacophony of the gunnery crews at work below, but no sign of their assailant.

And then something shot past the nearest window at a speed that very nearly shattered what little glass was left on the bridge; as the first of many explosions rocked the deck of _Triumph, _Will looked close realized that the creature had retreated to the air - and was now bombarding the ship from above. The deck was suddenly lost amidst whirling maelstroms of fire, hails of razor-sharp icicles, wave after wave of Distorting energies and acidic fluids. It was almost impossible to guess at how much of it was actual destructive magic and how much of it was just illusion, and in truth it didn't matter at this point: the crew believed it was real, and that was enough for them - enough to have them deserting their posts en mass. For their part, the soldiers were caught completely off-guard: quite apart from the fact that their attacker was moving too fast for them to retaliate against, the bombardment had them so hopelessly confused and demoralized that it was a wonder that they hadn't tried to surrender yet. More than once, he saw men trampling each other apparently to death in their attempts to escape the barrage of spells, or diving back below decks (sometimes not even the deck of their own ship, a few especially panicked soldiers actually trying to batter open the transport's cargo hold); once, he even saw men willingly jumping over the railing to their deaths.

Wills could only crawl out from behind his chair and make his way across the bridge on hands and knees, desperately looking for a radio that might be in working order. This was beyond any situation he'd ever faced in his career; this wasn't some flesh-corrupted Purified-to-be running for his life, a Deviant trying to shelter Distorted children or even an enemy spy armed with a few spells; this was _laughing death_. Trying to tackle it head-on would be nothing short of suicidal; he had to call for backup... and to do that, he'd had to make his way down to the communications hub.

Outside, chaos reigned; very few living soldiers were left on deck, most of them either too wounded to carry on or running for the escape-vessels. But there were still a few trying to fire the ship's guns –maybe enough to buy him some time to reach the radio, enough to-

Behind him, a familiar voice snarled, "I'll ask again: _where's Glinda?"_

Commander Wills slowly turned to look at the Distortion now standing right behind him, magic swirling in incandescent waves around its hands.

He briefly considered telling her where Glinda was, before absently realizing he didn't know _who_ this mysterious Glinda was, let alone where. Admitting that would almost certainly result in a swift and extremely painful death; or worse, he might even be taken prisoner - forced out of Unbridled Radiance's purifying grasp and into the very heart of Deviancy, from which there'd be no return.

But there was another way out, as it happened... just over the railing, in fact.

With a scream of desperation, he flung himself backwards over the edge of the ship, vaulting over the railing and into oblivion.

The last thing he heard – just before gravity seized him in midair and sent him plunging towards the ground – was the Distortion muttering "Well, _that_ was anticlimactic."

* * *

Glinda awoke to a screaming pain in her chest, barely muffled by the thundering headache rippling through her skull – courtesy of her last three or four collisions with the deck. Coughing weakly, she tried to sit up, but almost immediately slumped back to the floor with a yowl of pain; even if her legs didn't feel half-splintered in the long fall down the gangway, even if the hand she'd been using to help herself upright hadn't been effectively barbecued, she still wouldn't be in any fit state to move.

After all, she was bleeding to death, wasn't she?

This time, there wouldn't be any stasis spell to save her life; this time, she was going to die. _Assuming I'm not in hell already,_ she thought deliriously, _and this isn't just going to land me back where I started._

She glanced around her, her eyes vainly trying to discern details amidst the shadows of the cargo bay: the most she could see – by what little light shone from between the cracks in the trapdoor above them - was Omber, lying in a heap next to her. S/he was breathing, but very shallowly, the dark, androgynous features pale and almost bloodless.

_We're both going to die here. Was the escape all for nothing, then?_

There was a thump from overhead: someone was trying to get in, scrabbling at the latch and struggling to lift the heavy, iron-reinforced trapdoor. It didn't take a genius to guess what had happened – and what was going to happen: Unbridled Radiance's forces had finally caught up with them, and their little airship was being boarded. Any minute now, the door would open, and the two of them would be recaptured; Omber would probably be shot dead, assuming s/he didn't bleed to death before that happened, while Glinda would be retrieved alive, to either be Purified or be "Incorporated" into Paragon.

_So,_ she thought, _It really was for nothing, in the end. Or..._

_No. It wasn't; because I'm not going to go out quietly; I'm not going to be like the old, weak Glinda. I'm not going to let them take me without a fight, like I did with Hayfelt and the Empress. I'm going to go out the way Elphaba would! I'm going to go down fighting, and I'm going to make sure those bastards out there can't take me alive!_

Slowly, backing herself against the wall, she slowly managed to forced herself into a standing position – and not a moment too soon, because in the exact same second that she managed to stagger to her feet, the door creaked upon, flooding the hold with light: at the very centre of it, a featureless silhouette stood, peering down the gangway.

Glinda raised her left hand in her best impression of a magical gesture (right would have given away the fact that she was seriously injured); even if her wand was lost for good this time, she could still pretend she had magic on her said. "Stop right there!" she shouted, doing her best to sound fearless, to sound invincible – _to sound like Elphaba._ "I don't care what your Empress told you about me, but I'm not interested in living up to what she imagines would be best for me; I'm not going to be Purified or taken to Paragon, or whatever. _You're _going to back away and run for your life, or you're going to find out just how many ways a trained Witch can kill a human being!"

There was a pause, and the silhouette crept closer. _"Glinda?" _it whispered incredulously.

"I mean it!" Glinda shrilled back, waving her hand dramatically. "Take step one step closer, and this entire ship goes up in smoke! You won't even have time to-"

At that point, she lost her balance; she would have gone crashing to the ground had the shadowy figure not lunged forward and scooped her up in its arms. Glinda was about protest, when the light from the open doorway above them finally illuminated the intruder's face; suddenly, the will to fight left her. It was as if all the anger and all the fear in her body had simply drained away... and with good reason.

"Elphaba?" she whispered.

"You have absolutely _no_ idea how good it is to see you," the figure whispered, hugging Glinda fiercely around the shoulders. "Are you hurt?"

In spite of herself, Glinda could only laugh: somehow, the ridiculousness of the question – of the whole situation, in fact – now seemed so obvious that she couldn't stop herself from laughing. For about thirty seconds, she helplessly giggled and guffawed, even as the wound in her stomach howled in protest.

Between giggles, she managed to ask, "Is this real?"

"Glinda, in case you haven't noticed, you look as though you're about to bleed to death-"

"Please... tell me this isn't a dream; tell me I'm not hallucinating, that I'm not about to be dragged back to hell - anything you like... just tell me that this is real."

Elphaba's eyes softened in pity. "Yes," she murmured. "Yes, Glinda, it's real; you're not imagining this. Everything's going to be okay."

Glinda smiled, and let out a noise that started as a laugh and ended as a sob: "Thank you," she whimpered. "Thank you..."

Then she collapsed, shivering and sobbing, into the warmth of Elphaba's arms.

* * *

A/N: I had to trim this down from it's initial length, particularly in the case of the confrontation between Glinda, Omber and the two mage-surgeons; that segment was originally a full-blown monologue regarding Omber's past, and after looking over it once or twice, I eventually decided to take a mincer to it. Quite apart from the issue of cramming too much detail into an already-eventful chapter, giving Omber too much "monologue-my-backstory" time at this stage of the story might just push him/her into Mary Suedom.

One way or another, I hope you enjoyed this latest chapter, and with a little luck and effort, the next installment will be here soon. Farewell for now!


End file.
